CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: CRWD) was a company that could do no wrong as investors were rewarded in the ever-growing AI and data security themes. It only took 18 months for CRWD stock to rise to $400 from $100. Then, in mid-2024, the unthinkable happened when a software upgrade created a global SNAFU riddled with outages that crippled its customers’ websites and online operations.
Before it was all said and done, CrowdStrike shares fell from almost $400 down to nearly $200 in just a month. And after a climactic and short-lived panic-selling bottom, this stock was back to $400 just this February. It even went up to $450 as the “CrowdStrike is back and all is forgiven” theme came into play.
And as March has kicked off, the stock is facing a maturing story after its earnings and guidance. This is at the same time that the market is trying to price in the economic headwinds that are becoming harder and harder to ignore.
Some of Wall Street’s greatest hyper-growth stories are starting to become maturing growth stories. That can be a painful transition if investors have been used to significant returns.
THE EARNINGS DRIVERS
While revenues beat expectations $1.06 billion (vs. $1.04 billion est.) and earnings of $1.03 EPS (vs. $0.87 est.), CrowdStrike’s current year (FY-2026) revenue guidance of $4.74 billion to $4.81 billion and $3.33 EPS to $3.45 EPS were slightly below consensus.
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While 20% revenue growth and earnings growth are good on the surface, somewhat weaker guidance is rarely a good thing for investors holding a stock valued at more than 100-times earnings.
Here are some of the positive observations that drove the quarter:
- Annual recurring revenue grew 23.3% to $4.24 billion, including a $30 million impact from its customer commitment packages.
- Net new ARR annual recurring revenue was $224 million during the quarter.
- Major drivers were seen from Next-Gen SIEM, Cloud Security, and Identity Protection.
- Module adoption rates are still improving while they consolidate on the Falcon platform.
- 67% of its customers are now using 5 or more modules.
- It has announced the general availability of Charlotte AI Detection Triage, another expansion on top of existing sales to customers.
- So far, with more than a 6% stock drop, the more pressing matter is that revenue expectations appear to have the “CrowdStrike outage hangover” still at work.
WALL STREET SAYS…
Oggonomics has tracked more than a dozen analyst calls showing additional price target changes on top of what had been seen over the last 6 months. Of the post-news analyst calls seen so far, 9 firms raised their price targets and another 5 firms lowered their price targets.
Here are the CrowdStrike Holdings analyst calls with price target hikes organized by firm:
- BMO Capital: PT raised to $405 from $380 – Maintained Outperform
- Canaccord Genuity: PT raised to $420 from $370 – Maintained Buy
- DA Davidson: PT raised to $415 from $395 – Maintained Buy
- Evercore ISI Group: PT raised to $450 from $400 – Maintained Outperform
- Piper Sandler: PT raised to $400 from $375 – Maintained Overweight
- Raymond James: PT raised to $390 from $360
- Susquehanna: PT raised to $425 from $400 – Maintained Positive
- Wedbush: PT raised to $395 from $390 – Maintained Outperform
- Wells Fargo: PT raised to $430 from $400 – Maintained Overweight
These are the price targets that have been cut in the earnings aftermath:
- Baird: PT cut to $405 from $440 – Maintained Neutral
- Barclays: PT cut to $475 from $506 – Maintained Overweight
- Jefferies: PT cut to $425 from $450 – Maintained Buy
- KeyBanc: PT cut to $450 from $480 – Maintained Overweight
- Stifel: PT cut to $435 from $475 – Maintained Buy
Here are some of the firms that have only reiterated their prior price targets:
- BofA Securities: PO maintained $420 – Reiterated Buy
- Cantor Fitzgerald: PT maintained at $440 – Reiterated Buy
- Rosenblatt: PT maintained at $450 – Maintained Buy
CrowdStrike analysts over the last 24 months have tended to be more grouped directionally with price target themes after earnings. Is this directional shift going to mark a significant attitude shift for the CrowdStrike bulls? That verdict remains to be seen.
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Please note that all price targets and ratings in the report are from the firms named above. Oggonomics does not maintain any formal rating or price target on CrowdStrike.
AND THE STOCK…
CrowdStrike was last seen trading down 6.6% at $364.25 and the 11.5 million shares that have traded mid-way this trading session was already more than 3-times normal trading volume.
