An Analyst Cheered Crowdstrike’s Recovery From Outages—and its Stock Surged

Key Takeaways

• CrowdStrike shares moved higher after RBC Capital included the stock among its top picks in the software space.

• The company garnered negative coverage in July when a flawed software update caused worldwide tech outages, but RBC said CrowdStrike is successfully moving past the incident.

• Delta Air Lines said it continues to seek compensation from CrowdStrike related to the incident.

Shares of cybersecurity provider CrowdStrike Holdings (CRWD) added more than 5% on Thursday, notching the S&P 500’s top performance of the day, after RBC Capital named the company one of its top investment ideas in North American software for 2025.

CrowdStrike drew scrutiny in mid-July when the firm’s defective software update caused widespread technology outages across the world. Fallout from that incident sent CrowdStrike shares tumbling, and it’s still below the levels seen after those events—but the stock has been on a path of recovery since printing a low in early August.

Upbeat Forecasts as CrowdStrike Moves Past Outage

According to analysts at RBC, the negative headlines about the midsummer software update and subsequent technological interruptions generated “short-term noise” surrounding CrowdStrike stock, but the company appears poised to emerge from the situation in a strong position.

RBC believes CrowdStrike could be on track to achieve $10 billion in annual recurring revenue (ARR). The company’s management team recently reiterated its goal to achieve this ambitious milestone by fiscal 2031. CrowdStrike’s ARR for fiscal 2024 came in at over $3.4 billion.

Outage-Related Overhangs Remain

CrowdStrike continues to face issues stemming from the July incident. When Delta Air Lines (DAL) reported lower-than-expected sales and profits in its quarterly report released Thursday, the carrier cited the negative impact of the CrowdStrike outage, which resulted in the cancellation of thousands of flights.

According to Delta, the incident caused a $380 million hit to revenue in the quarter. The airline’s CEO said Delta continues to seek compensation from CrowdStrike and Microsoft (MSFT) related to the outages.

Following Thursday’s gains, CrowdStrike shares are trading around 23% higher year-to-date but remain around 21% below the all-time highs seen this summer before the incident.

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