Quarterly Outlook
Q3 Investor Outlook: Beyond American shores – why diversification is your strongest ally
Jacob Falkencrone
Global Head of Investment Strategy
CrowdStrike earnings: can it hold the lead?
Ruben Dalfovo
Investment Strategist
Key takeaways
- Platform stickiness, not one-offs, drives the story
- Focus on annual recurring revenue growth, platform adoption, and margins
- Size positions sensibly; don’t trade the print
Heading into results
CrowdStrike reports on Wednesday, 27 August, after the U.S. close. The Street looks for just over USD 1.1 billion in revenue and USD 0.83 in earnings per share. The focus is simple: ARR growth, more modules per customer, and strong cash conversion. Clear, credible guidance beats big promises. The good news is that security budgets are stable and buyers are consolidating vendors. Falcon fits that shift—one lightweight agent for endpoint, identity, cloud, and data. Into the print, watch demand durability, breadth of adoption, and margin discipline rather than the tick-by-tick move. If the company adds customers and lands more modules per customer while holding margins, the long game stays intact.
The possible scenarios:
- Base: steady net new ARR. Margins hold. Guide intact. Stock reaction: contained, constructive.
- Bull: strong customer adds and multi-product wins. Cash shines. Stock reaction: re-rate higher.
- Bear: ARR light or churn ticks up. Costs bite. Stock reaction: pressure on security names.
Sector ripple effect
Cyber risk is always on. Firms can delay upgrades, but they rarely cut core protection. CrowdStrike is a bellwether for the entire sector. Its Falcon platform sits on endpoints, cloud workloads, and identities—the attack surfaces that matter. When spending is strong here, confidence usually lifts across software security. That makes its guidance a read-through for enterprise security spend and the “platform vs. point product” debate. Many ETFs carry CrowdStrike as a top weight, so prints here ripple across portfolios even if you never bought the single name.
Signals to track
ARR and net new ARR. Clean growth beats one-offs. Look for steady net adds and low churn. Last quarter ARR rose 22% to USD 4.44 billion. Platform adoption. Management pushes multi-module wins across endpoint, identity, cloud, and data. Higher modules per customer lift lifetime value and margin mix. Margins and cash. Subscription gross margin hovered high-70s in recent periods; free-cash-flow conversion is the tell on pricing power and cost control. Guidance and discipline. Watch full year guidance bridges, hiring pace, and stock-based compensation (SBC). Sensible capex and buybacks signal confidence without stretch. Reputation risk. The July 2024 outage was a rare, painful miss. Investors will listen for customer retention, make-good costs, and process fixes.
Long-view checklist
Use three checks—moat, per-share value, discipline—and read the signals. Moat shows up in detection efficacy, speed, partner ecosystem, and how easily customers expand across modules; a platform that consolidates tools widens the gap. Per-share value comes from recurring ARR and strong margins through cycles, not a single quarter’s pop; watch multi-year contracts, remaining obligations, and cash generation. Discipline lives in operating costs, stock-based compensation, and capital returns—confidence without over-building. Cross-check demand: are large customers consolidating faster or stretching refresh cycles? Size positions so one headline does not dictate your plan.
Investor playbook
Anchor to reality. Use peer comps and fresh prints to sanity-check multiples and growth. Set your rails. Define max position size, set a fair-value range, and a time window for the thesis. Don’t chase noise. Long-term investors don’t need to trade tonight’s move to win the decade. Know your exposure. Check ETF exposure to CrowdStrike and close peers. After the bell: what’s next This print tests whether CrowdStrike’s platform keeps compounding—more modules, more ARR, strong margins—while reputational scars fade and customer budgets hold. Drivers: net new ARR, multi-product adoption, and cash generation. Risks: execution lapses, pricing pressure, and any demand pause from large customers. Over coming weeks, watch ARR cadence, subscription margin commentary, and full-year guidance bridges. Own quality at sensible sizes, let time do the lifting—and remember that a loud quarter is not the whole story.
This material is marketing content and should not be regarded as investment advice. Trading financial instruments carries risks and historic performance is not a guarantee of future results.
The instrument(s) referenced in this content may be issued by a partner, from whom Saxo receives promotional fees, payment or retrocessions. While Saxo may receive compensation from these partnerships, all content is created with the aim of providing clients with valuable information and options..
The instrument(s) referenced in this content may be issued by a partner, from whom Saxo receives promotional fees, payment or retrocessions. While Saxo may receive compensation from these partnerships, all content is created with the aim of providing clients with valuable information and options..
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