There was a while there where cybersecurity stocks like CrowdStrike (NASDAQ:CRWD) were holding their collective breath. Businesses examined their budgets and wondered if they really needed the latest firewall this year. CrowdStrike gained 2% in Monday afternoon’s trading as the answer proved, more often than not, to be yes, according to analyst reports.
CrowdStrike Has Several Factors Distinguishing It from Competitors
The good news for CrowdStrike started with Stifel Nicolaus, by way of analyst Adam Borg, noting that the picture was looking a lot brighter for CrowdStrike than it did previously. Sufficiently brighter, in fact, to hike its rating from Hold to Buy and the price target from $153 to a whopping $225 per share. Borg notes that CrowdStrike has several key factors that distinguish it from the competition, starting with “…high-efficacy cloud-based endpoint technology” and “lightweight single-agent architecture.” All of this adds up to a high-potency security platform, which is exactly what businesses need these days.
It only got better when more threats started to emerge, a point that might have pushed some hesitant buyers off the fence. Reports came out about Imperial Kitten, a group that may have connections to Iran. Imperial Kitten is reportedly taking aim at Israeli systems and, from there, may expand its sights outward to American operations. Imperial Kitten has been active since 2017 but has become particularly aggressive in the last few months as it takes on Israel and works to augment Iran’s strategic intelligence systems.
What is the Target Price for CrowdStrike Stock?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on CRWD stock based on 33 Buys and one Hold assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 40.99% rally in its share price over the past year, the average CRWD price target of $199.12 per share implies 0.55% downside risk.
