CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: CRWD) ended the Black Friday‑shortened session on November 28, 2025 with a solid gain, as investors positioned ahead of next week’s earnings and digested a wave of new analyst commentary on the cybersecurity leader’s valuation, AI roadmap and Falcon Flex subscription model.
CrowdStrike stock today: how CRWD traded on November 28, 2025
On Friday, CrowdStrike closed at $509.16, up about 1.5% on the day, outperforming the broader market as the S&P 500 added roughly 0.5% and the Dow gained about 0.6%. [1]
Trading volume came in around 1.0 million shares, well below the recent average between roughly 2.5–3.4 million shares, suggesting the move higher happened on relatively light participation in the holiday session. [2]
Even after Friday’s bounce, CRWD still trades about 10% below its 52‑week high near $567, set earlier in November, underscoring how sharp the mid‑month pullback was despite a very strong year to date. [3]
Different analytics providers peg CrowdStrike’s year‑to‑date gain in the mid‑40% to mid‑50% range, with one recent analysis citing a 54.8% YTD rise and nearly 60% return over the past 12 months, and another highlighting roughly 44% YTD and 326% over three years. [4]
The November 28 news flow: what changed for CrowdStrike?
1. Evercore highlights early Falcon Flex momentum, keeps “In Line” rating
A widely read note syndicated via Investing.com reported that Evercore ISI reiterated its “In Line” rating on CRWD with a $430 price target, ahead of CrowdStrike’s fiscal Q3 earnings on December 2. [5]
Key takeaways from Evercore’s channel checks:
- Early momentum in Falcon Flex: After “several soft quarters,” partners are now seeing improving traction for Falcon Flex, CrowdStrike’s more flexible subscription model. The note credits renewed go‑to‑market focus and incentives for sales reps. [6]
- Pipeline and sentiment improving, but not euphoric: Partner surveys showed modestly better sentiment and pipeline visibility compared with the prior quarter, consistent with expectations for continued – but not explosive – growth. [7]
- Mixed utilization and pricing questions: Some partners still flag uneven Flex utilization and uncertainty over whether customers will accept full list pricing on renewals as prior credits roll off. [8]
The same piece also highlighted that, over the last twelve months, CrowdStrike generated about $4.3–4.4 billion in revenue, growing roughly 23% year over year, while still not GAAP‑profitable but expected to cross into profitability this fiscal year. [9]
2. Analysts push targets higher as AI and Next‑Gen SIEM ramp
Friday’s coverage also pulled together a flurry of recent analyst moves:
- DA Davidson – Buy, $580 target
- Jefferies – Buy, $600 target
- TD Cowen – Buy, $580 target
- Oppenheimer – Outperform, $580 target
- Guggenheim – Neutral, acknowledging leadership but warning on revenue risk and valuation. [10]
On top of this, Smartkarma’s Friday “Market Movers” note emphasized that multiple research shops remain bullish on CrowdStrike’s expansion in identity protection and AI‑driven security, citing:
- Record net new ARR of $221 million in the latest reported quarter
- Total ARR of $4.66 billion, up about 20% year over year
- Operating income of $255 million and ~21% revenue growth. [11]
3. Charlotte AI wins FedRAMP High, boosting government opportunity
Evercore’s note and Smartkarma’s recap both pointed out a key milestone: CrowdStrike’s Charlotte AI has obtained FedRAMP High authorization, allowing the AI security assistant to be used in sensitive U.S. government environments. [12]
One report highlighted internal metrics suggesting triage accuracy around 98%, which, if sustained, could strengthen CrowdStrike’s pitch that AI can materially reduce analyst workload in Security Operations Centers (SOCs) – an important differentiator against legacy tools. [13]
This FedRAMP milestone comes as governments and large enterprises reassess their cyber posture after high‑profile breaches and outages, potentially opening a larger public‑sector pipeline for CrowdStrike’s Falcon platform.
4. Social sentiment: bullish on AI & earnings, wary on valuation and insider selling
Quiver Quantitative’s November 28 summary of X (Twitter) chatter around CRWD highlighted three themes: [14]
- Optimism on earnings and AI – Many users see the recent price‑target hikes (including new targets up to $600+) as a signal that growth momentum remains intact, especially around AI‑driven endpoint security and Falcon’s role in enterprise consolidation.
- Valuation concerns – A minority but vocal group stresses that CrowdStrike’s premium multiple leaves little margin for error if earnings or guidance disappoint.
- Insider and institutional activity –
- Over the last six months, insiders executed 214 sale transactions and zero open‑market buys, including sizable disposals by CEO George Kurtz, President Michael Sentonas and CFO Burt Podbere. [15]
- Congress members traded the stock only three times in that window (two buys, one sale), while more than a thousand institutional investors added shares and around 850 cut positions, reflecting vigorous but mixed institutional repositioning. [16]
While heavy insider selling is not unusual for a long‑running winner with large employee equity packages, the asymmetry (sales but no open‑market insider buys) is something valuation‑sensitive investors are watching.
5. Fresh valuation debate pieces
Two new valuation‑focused articles from Simply Wall St on November 27–28 added more fuel to the debate: [17]
- One article framed CrowdStrike as slightly undervalued relative to a popular “fair value” narrative of $518.96 per share, with the prior close around $501.54 – implying roughly 3–4% upside to that model.
- Another took a stricter quantitative lens:
- Discounted cash‑flow (DCF) fair value of $453.44, suggesting shares are about 10–11% overvalued at recent prices.
- A price‑to‑sales (P/S) ratio around 29x, versus a U.S. software industry average near 4.7x and peer average around 12.5x.
- Their proprietary “fair” P/S ratio for CrowdStrike is 18x, implying a meaningful valuation premium even after adjusting for above‑average growth.
Data from YCharts and other statistics pages broadly corroborate these high multiples, with recent estimates showing a P/S around 28–29x, price‑to‑book over 30x and a market cap in the $125–126 billion range. [18]
In short: valuation models are all over the map, but almost everyone agrees the stock is priced at a premium – the question is whether the growth story justifies it.
Earnings countdown: what Wall Street expects from CrowdStrike on December 2
CrowdStrike is scheduled to report fiscal Q3 2026 results on Tuesday, December 2, 2025, after the bell. [19]
Management guidance vs. consensus
- Revenue guidance:
- Company: $1.208–$1.218 billion
- Street consensus: about $1.21 billion, implying ~20% year‑over‑year growth. [20]
- Non‑GAAP EPS guidance:
- Company: $0.93–$0.95 per share
- Consensus: roughly $0.94, ~1% growth vs. last year. [21]
Zacks notes that CrowdStrike has beaten earnings expectations in each of the last four quarters with an average surprise around 15%, but its quantitative “Earnings ESP” model does not strongly point to another beat this time, leading the firm to rate the stock as a “Hold” into the print. [22]
KPIs the market will be laser‑focused on
Based on recent previews and analyst commentary, several non‑GAAP metrics may matter even more than the headline EPS figure: [23]
- Net new Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) – After record $221 million net new ARR in the last reported quarter (pushing total ARR to $4.66 billion, up ~20% YoY), investors want to see whether that pace can be sustained or accelerated.
- Falcon Flex adoption – The Street will look for updated counts of Flex customers (now >1,000) and “re‑Flex” renewals (already >100), plus commentary on whether these customers continue expanding their spend by ~50% or more as early anecdotes suggest.
- Next‑Gen SIEM – Next‑generation SIEM ARR has been growing at >95% year over year to >$430 million, winning large legacy replacement deals; expectations are that momentum continued in Q3.
- Charlotte AI usage and monetization – Management has previously cited 85% quarter‑over‑quarter growth in Charlotte AI usage and linked the AI assistant to major eight‑figure deals, including a Fortune 500 software customer that renewed a Flex contract 18 months early. Investors will want proof this trend is broad, not just anecdotal.
If any of these levers stall, the premium multiple becomes more vulnerable; if they accelerate, current valuations may prove more defensible.
How bullish is Wall Street on CrowdStrike stock?
Across the sell side, sentiment remains strongly positive, even as a few voices urge caution.
Consensus ratings and price targets
Public.com’s aggregation of analyst views shows: [24]
- 36 analysts covering CRWD
- Consensus rating: “Buy”
- 0% Sell / 0% Strong Sell
- Mix: roughly 31% Strong Buy, 42% Buy, 28% Hold
- Average 12‑month price target around $523–530, only modestly above the current ~$509 share price
Quiver’s dataset similarly reports 23 firms with Buy‑equivalent ratings and no Sell ratings, plus a median price target around $530, with recent targets clustered between $540 and $630. [25]
In practical terms, that means most analysts think CRWD can grind higher from here, but the days of easy multi‑bagger gains off pandemic‑era lows are likely behind it. Upside now hinges on continued high‑teens / low‑20s revenue growth, margin expansion and flawless execution.
Bull vs. bear arguments as of November 28
Analyst and platform summaries published this week outline a fairly consistent bull/bear debate: [26]
Bulls emphasize:
- Durable 20%+ growth runway in a structurally expanding cybersecurity and AI‑security market.
- The Falcon platform’s breadth (endpoint, identity, cloud, data, SIEM) and modular design, which makes it easier to consolidate spending onto CrowdStrike.
- Falcon Flex and AI features like Charlotte AI as catalysts for higher ARPU and stickier multi‑year relationships.
- A strong balance sheet and increasing profitability, with operating leverage starting to show up in recent quarters.
Bears focus on:
- Very high valuation: forward price‑to‑sales around 22x vs. industry ~12x, and trailing P/S around 28–29x, several times the software and security averages. [27]
- Decelerating net revenue retention, sliding from ~119% to ~112% across recent fiscal quarters, suggesting slower expansion from existing customers. [28]
- Rising operating expenses, with R&D up more than twelvefold and Sales & Marketing nearly ninefold from 2019 to fiscal 2025, which could pressure margins if growth slows. [29]
- Concentration of insider selling and the lack of insider open‑market buys. [30]
Zacks’s latest pre‑earnings piece essentially lands in the middle: great company, attractive long‑term story, but a stretched valuation and cost base justify a neutral “Hold” rating for new money until a better entry point emerges. [31]
Key risks and longer‑term context for investors
Beyond the near‑term earnings narrative, Friday’s coverage – combined with recent research – flags several structural themes investors in CRWD should keep in mind.
1. Cybersecurity tailwinds vs. competitive pressure
CrowdStrike sits in a $300+ billion global cybersecurity market expected to grow at double‑digit rates through the next decade, helped by cloud migration, AI‑driven threats and tighter regulation. [32]
However, it faces fierce competition from Palo Alto Networks, Zscaler, Microsoft and others, several of which are also leaning heavily into AI and integrated platforms. Recent earnings from rivals like Zscaler show that demand is robust but selective; investors punish even minor guidance disappointments in this space. [33]
2. Reputation and operational risk after the 2024 outage
While not front‑and‑center in Friday’s news, the market has not entirely forgotten the July 2024 Falcon sensor update that caused widespread Windows outages globally. A faulty configuration file pushed to Windows endpoints triggered boot loops and forced manual remediation at thousands of organizations. [34]
CrowdStrike has since improved its release and rollback processes, and customer churn did not spike materially according to subsequent disclosures, but any future high‑profile incident could re‑ignite concerns about single‑agent concentration risk in mission‑critical infrastructure.
3. CEO’s growing sports profile and brand reach
Another November headline that indirectly matters for brand equity: CEO George Kurtz acquired a 15% slice of Toto Wolff’s stake in the Mercedes Formula One team, valuing the team at around $6 billion. He will serve as a technology adviser and join the team’s strategic steering committee, deepening an existing sponsorship relationship. [35]
While this doesn’t change CrowdStrike’s fundamentals, it reinforces the company’s high‑visibility marketing strategy, particularly among younger and international audiences where F1 viewership is booming – potentially supporting brand awareness as it courts large global customers.
What November 28 means for CrowdStrike investors
Pulling it all together, the November 28, 2025 news flow around CrowdStrike stock can be boiled down to three big messages:
- Price action is constructive but not euphoric
- CRWD’s move to about $509, on light volume and still below recent highs, looks more like measured positioning into earnings than a speculative blow‑off. [36]
- Fundamentals and product momentum remain strong
- Fresh data points on Falcon Flex, Next‑Gen SIEM and Charlotte AI suggest that CrowdStrike is executing well on its strategy to move from a point‑solution vendor to a broad, AI‑native security cloud. [37]
- Valuation is the main tension point
- Multiple independent models now label the stock either fairly valued with limited upside or modestly overvalued, even while acknowledging the strength of the franchise and its long‑term growth prospects. [38]
For short‑term traders, the setup into December 2 is binary: a strong beat and upbeat guidance could justify recent price target hikes and potentially re‑test the $560+ highs, while any hint of ARR deceleration or soft Flex/SIEM metrics could trigger a sharp pullback given stretched multiples.
For long‑term investors, the decision is more nuanced:
- If you believe CrowdStrike can sustain ~20%+ revenue growth, continue scaling margins, and maintain its lead in AI‑driven security, current levels may still work over a multi‑year horizon, even if near‑term returns are bumpier.
- If you’re valuation‑sensitive or already overweight high‑multiple AI/software names, it may be prudent to wait for either a pullback or a new fundamental data point that materially raises your estimate of fair value.
Either way, the November 28 tape and news confirm one thing: CrowdStrike remains one of the market’s most closely watched – and hotly debated – AI‑cybersecurity stocks heading into year‑end.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice, an offer, or a recommendation to buy or sell any securities. Always do your own research or consult a licensed financial advisor before making investment decisions.
References
1. www.marketwatch.com, 2. www.marketwatch.com, 3. www.marketwatch.com, 4. finance.yahoo.com, 5. www.investing.com, 6. www.investing.com, 7. www.investing.com, 8. www.investing.com, 9. www.trefis.com, 10. www.investing.com, 11. www.smartkarma.com, 12. www.investing.com, 13. www.smartkarma.com, 14. www.quiverquant.com, 15. www.quiverquant.com, 16. www.quiverquant.com, 17. simplywall.st, 18. finance.yahoo.com, 19. www.nasdaq.com, 20. www.nasdaq.com, 21. www.nasdaq.com, 22. www.nasdaq.com, 23. www.nasdaq.com, 24. public.com, 25. www.quiverquant.com, 26. public.com, 27. finviz.com, 28. public.com, 29. www.nasdaq.com, 30. www.quiverquant.com, 31. www.nasdaq.com, 32. finimize.com, 33. www.investors.com, 34. en.wikipedia.org, 35. www.reuters.com, 36. www.marketwatch.com, 37. www.nasdaq.com, 38. simplywall.st
