AUSTIN, Texas, March 5, 2026, 18:20 CST
CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. shares rose 4.5% on Thursday to close at $426.16 after the cybersecurity firm forecast fiscal 2027 revenue above Wall Street estimates, giving investors some relief after weeks of AI-driven selling in software stocks.
The move matters because CrowdStrike has become a litmus test for whether AI will erode parts of cybersecurity software or drive more spending as attacks grow more automated. U.S. software and data-services stocks shed about $1 trillion in market value during a seven-session slide in early February, and cyber names were hit again late last month after Anthropic launched Claude Code Security.
CrowdStrike projected fiscal 2027 revenue of $5.87 billion to $5.93 billion on Tuesday, above analysts’ average estimate of $5.86 billion, according to LSEG data cited by Reuters. It also guided first-quarter revenue to $1.360 billion to $1.364 billion, ahead of expectations, after fourth-quarter revenue rose 23% to $1.31 billion and adjusted earnings per share reached $1.12, topping estimates of $1.10.
Annual recurring revenue, a measure of the yearly value of subscription contracts, rose 24% to $5.25 billion. Chief Executive George Kurtz said Falcon is becoming “mission-critical infrastructure” as companies adopt AI more widely. Barron’s
Truist Securities analyst Junaid Siddiqui said the muted first reaction after the results was still “a good outcome” for a software stock in this market. By Thursday’s close, investors had pushed the shares higher anyway. Reuters
That late-February selloff also dragged peers including Palo Alto Networks and SentinelOne. Robert W. Baird analyst Shrenik Kothari called the move a “panic-driven, narrative-led selloff” and said Anthropic’s new tool does not replace platforms that detect live intrusions or stop attacks in progress. Reuters
CrowdStrike is also pressing its expansion case. On Thursday, it said it had struck a long-term partnership with Schwarz Digits to make Falcon available on STACKIT, an EU-operated cloud, as European customers look for services that keep data inside the bloc under tighter cyber rules. Daniel Bernard, CrowdStrike’s chief business officer, said customers want AI at scale “without compromising data sovereignty or security.” CrowdStrike
But risks remain. CrowdStrike said costs tied to the Windows outage of July 19, 2024 and related matters rose to $117.7 million in fiscal 2026, even though they narrowed to $16.2 million in the latest quarter. If AI tools start absorbing simpler security tasks, the market may keep pressing the company to show its edge is widening, not narrowing.
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