Topic: How To Invest

Q: Cybersecurity seems to be a big thing these days. What do you think about CrowdStrike? Thanks for all your great advice over the years!

Article Excerpt

A: CrowdStrike Holdings Inc., $253.18, symbol CRWD on Nasdaq (Shares outstanding: 199.2 million; Market cap: $56.5 billion; www.crowdstrike.com), is an Internet-based cybersecurity specialist. The company’s CrowdStrike Falcon platform aims to protect customers against cyberattacks on their endpoints and cloud data. Endpoint security lets companies track, monitor and keep secure their employees’ mobile devices. CrowdStrike went public in June 2019 at $34 a share. Over the past five years, its revenue has risen sharply, from just $52.7 million in 2016 (fiscal year ended January 31, 2017) to $874.4 million in 2020. Excluding one-time items, the company lost money in the first four of those five years. Specifically, those losses were $108.4 million, or $2.73 a share, in 2016; $141.3 million, or $3.38 a share, in 2017; $119.0 million, or $2.65 a share, in 2018; and $62.6 million, or $0.42 a share, in 2019. CrowdStrike then reported a profit in 2020 of $62.6 million, or $0.27 a share (on more shares outstanding). In the three months…