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Stockchase Insights
CrowdStrike Holdings
CRWD-Q
HOLD
Aug 02, 2024
Stock price when the opinion was issued
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HOLD; CRWD reported earnings yesterday. Q4 results were solid but the guidance was less than expected. The company is likely being conservative, but operating expenses rose and we would like to see this settle in. We will have more quarterly comments to be posted before the opening tomorrow.
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Best of breed in cybersecurity, but plunged over 6% today after reporting a top and bottom line beat, but earnings guidance was soft for this quarter and full year. Shares had run up 94% from its August lows, priced for perfection. He added shares today, because he expects an accelerated second-half of 2025.
There's no shortage of cyber attacks and threats. That's why CRWD hit a high of $455 on Feb 19. Since then, shares have plunged to $308. He was selling, but today he bought back shares which are back to last summer's levels when they caused a massive worldwide outage. EPS guidance was light, but that reflected a higher tax rate ahead. Are already seeing a big return from AI, helping them catch hackers and reducing working hours by employees (labour savings). They beat earnings and revenues and delivered record cash flow. He bought more on today's weakness.
Earnings missed, though self-driving cars are their single-biggest opportunity. He just added more Uber and Crowdstrike that he's owned for years. CRWD is one of the best performers on the S&P this year; they had a lot of ground to make up for and has returned to past levels, pre-outage. They saw a 23% increase in annual recurring revenue, a key metric. Shares are 26% above their 200-day, so firmly in a long-term uptrend. Another super quarter by CRWD.
It is a very tough decision. Sentiment of course is all negative, and the stock has lost $40B in value. But, headlines can still take it lower, and we are pretty sure more lawsuits are on the way. While we think it is getting interesting, we would still be cautious on overall position size, and conservative investors we think should trim some on risk alone. New buyers without a position we think could chip away on more weakness, slowly. In other words, we would see it as a HOLD right now, but only in a manageable position. It has $3B cash and some insurance, but is still at 56X earnings, and earnings growth is likely to fall off until this event is behind them.
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