CrowdStrike closed at $227.96 on 27 August 2026, up 20.5% in a single session and within 0.5% of its 52-week high of $229.08. It was the stock’s largest one-day gain in at least five years of split-adjusted daily closes. It was also, measured against 13 August, a gain of just 1.08%.
That second number is the one nobody is quoting. CRWD closed at $225.53 on 13 August, then sold off 17.8% to $185.38 by 25 August ahead of the print. The 20.5% move recovered a two-week de-rating and added a percentage point on top. The stock is up 94.5% year to date from the 31 December 2025 close of $117.19. Our bull case is $312 and our bear case is $139, both derived below from stated revenue and multiple paths.
Here is the synthesis almost nobody is running. The share price has fully recovered from the July 2024 Falcon outage and then some: from the pre-incident close of $85.76 on 18 July 2024, the stock is up 165.8%. The expansion motion has not. Dollar-based net retention was 119% at 31 January 2024 per the fiscal 2024 Form 10-K, fell to 112% a year later and had recovered only to 115% at 31 January 2026 per the fiscal 2026 Form 10-K. Two years on, three of the seven lost points are back. The equity recovered all of its drawdown and added 66 points more.
Key facts
- CrowdStrike reported Q2 fiscal year 2027 results (quarter ended 31 July 2026) after the close on 26 August 2026, per the Form 8-K filed that afternoon.
- Revenue was $1.4709bn, up 25.8% year on year; subscription revenue $1.4003bn, up 27.0%.
- Ending ARR reached $5.84bn, up 25%, with record net new ARR of $332.8m, up 51% year on year.
- ARR from accounts on Falcon Flex exceeded $2.29bn, up 101% year on year, or roughly 39% of total ARR.
- Free cash flow was $377.4m; cash stood at $5.014bn against $746.2m of long-term debt.
- FY27 guidance raised to revenue of $5,991.1m-$6,011.1m and non-GAAP diluted EPS of $1.25-$1.26.
- Stock-based compensation and related payroll taxes were $399.0m in the quarter, equal to 27.1% of revenue.
What CrowdStrike actually reported on 26 August
The fiscal label matters. CrowdStrike’s year ends 31 January, so the quarter ended 31 July 2026 is Q2 of fiscal year 2027. Results were filed on Form 8-K under Item 2.02 on the afternoon of 26 August 2026, and the market reaction landed the following session.
The metric CrowdStrike is now run on is net new ARR, not revenue. Net new ARR of $332.8m was a company record and grew 51% year on year, implying roughly $220m in the comparable quarter. Ending ARR of $5.84bn grew 25%. That is an acceleration: ARR growth ran 34% at January 2024, decelerated to 23% at January 2025 in the year of the outage, then turned back up to 24% at January 2026 and 25% now.
Falcon Flex is the mechanism. ARR from accounts on the flexible consumption model passed $2.29bn, up 101% year on year against $1.69bn at 31 January 2026. Flex has gone from roughly 32% of total ARR to roughly 39% in two quarters. Module adoption stepped up too: 51%, 35% and 26% of subscription customers now run six or more, seven or more, and eight or more modules.
Profitability improved on both bases. GAAP loss from operations narrowed to $33.2m from $105.5m; non-GAAP operating income rose to $371.6m from $255.0m. GAAP net income was $5.3m, or $0.01 diluted; non-GAAP net income was $322.9m, or $0.31. Operating cash flow was a Q2 record $530.3m and free cash flow $377.4m, a 25.7% margin. First-half free cash flow of $845.9m carries a 29.6% margin.
Chief executive George Kurtz said in the results release filed with the SEC: “Q2 was the best quarter in CrowdStrike’s history. Delivering record Falcon Flex results, record net new ARR, and accelerating growth—the Falcon is soaring. We’re raising our full year fiscal 2027 net new ARR growth outlook by 630 basis points.”
Chief financial officer Burt Podbere added, in the same 8-K exhibit, that the company “achieved record net new ARR of $333 million alongside record net new ARR from new logos, increased dollar-based gross and net retention rates, and Q2 record cash flow from operations and free cash flow,” citing a “record Q3 pipeline” behind the raise.
The guidance: Q3 FY27 revenue of $1,523.2m to $1,529.2m, ending ARR of $6,184.4m to $6,188.4m and non-GAAP diluted EPS of $0.31. Full-year FY27 revenue of $5,991.1m to $6,011.1m, ending ARR of $6,603.0m to $6,611.9m and non-GAAP diluted EPS of $1.25 to $1.26 on 1,044m diluted shares. Per-share figures are post the four-for-one split that began trading on 2 July 2026.
How much of the 20.5% was actually CrowdStrike?
Less than the headline implies. Okta also filed results under Item 2.02 on 26 August, and on 27 August the whole complex re-rated. Okta closed up 28.63%, Rapid7 up 14.50%, Palo Alto Networks up 12.83%, Tenable up 11.76%, SentinelOne up 10.73%, ServiceNow up 10.04%, Zscaler up 9.98%, Fortinet up 9.67% and Qualys up 6.75%. The S&P 500 ETF rose 0.66% that day.
Strip out the two that reported and the median move across the seven security and software names that announced nothing was 10.73%. CrowdStrike’s excess over that median was roughly 9.8 percentage points: a strong idiosyncratic reaction, but about half the headline. The rest was a sector repricing of agentic-AI exposure that also lifted names such as Salesforce, which jumped 20% on its Agentforce numbers the same week.
The dispersion inside that group is the tell. Zscaler rose 9.98% to $187.30 and remains 44% below its own 52-week high of $336.99. CrowdStrike rose 20.5% and sits 0.5% below its high. The market is paying up for the two or three assets it believes will capture AI-security budget.
The bull case: a path to $312
The bull case is not a multiple-expansion argument. At 38.9 times FY27 guided revenue there is nothing left to expand. It is an argument that growth stays above 20% for two more years while the multiple holds roughly flat.
Start with the FY27 revenue guide midpoint of $6.001bn. Assume FY28 revenue growth of 24% and FY29 of 22%, a gentle deceleration from the 25.8% posted in Q2. That gives $7.44bn and then $9.08bn. Apply 36 times enterprise value to FY29 revenue, below today’s 38.9 times, for an enterprise value of $327bn. Add roughly $9bn of net cash and divide by about 1,075m diluted shares after net dilution of some 1.5% a year. That gives $312.
The evidence for the growth leg is specific. Net new ARR reaccelerated from 32% growth in Q1 FY27 to 51% in Q2, and management raised the full-year net new ARR growth target from 27.7% to 34% at the midpoint. Falcon Flex ARR is compounding at 101%. Gross and net retention both improved, per the CFO. First-half free cash flow margin was 29.6% against 25% a year earlier, and the Rule of 40 score on Q2 is 51.5.
There is a second leg. The legal overhang from the July 2024 outage has largely cleared. Per the Q2 FY27 Form 10-Q, the consolidated airline-passenger class action was dismissed, the Fifth Circuit affirmed on 20 May 2026 and denied rehearing on 15 June 2026, and three sets of shareholder derivative suits were dismissed in March and April 2026. The incident accrual is down to $13.1m, and the quarter booked a $14.5m net insurance recovery rather than a cost.
The bear case: a path to $139
The bear case does not require a scandal. It requires growth to normalise while the multiple normalises with it, the ordinary fate of software assets at 35 times ARR.
Take the same FY27 base. Assume FY28 revenue growth decelerates to 17% and FY29 to 14%, roughly where Palo Alto Networks and Fortinet sit today. That gives $7.02bn in FY28. Apply 20 times enterprise value to FY28 revenue, the multiple mature mid-teens growers command, add $6.5bn of net cash and divide by about 1,060m shares. That gives $139, a 39% drawdown from $227.96 and still above the $87.56 close of 24 February 2026.
Four things support that path. First, the guidance raise is far smaller than the share price move. The FY27 revenue guide midpoint has moved from $5,897.6m when first issued on 3 March 2026 to $6,001.1m now, a cumulative increase of 1.75%. The FY27 non-GAAP EPS guide has gone from a split-adjusted $1.195-$1.225 to $1.25-$1.26. The stock is up 94.5% year to date against a full-year revenue guide up under two percent.
Second, the raise is back-end loaded. The Q3 ARR guide implies about $343m of net new ARR. Reaching the full-year ARR midpoint of $6,607m then requires roughly $421m in Q4, up 27% on the $330.7m record set in Q4 FY26 and by a wide margin the largest quarter in company history. The entire 630-basis-point raise sits in a quarter that has not happened.
Third, Falcon Flex cuts both ways. The 10-Q warns that if customers “are not able to fully utilize their product subscriptions (including in connection with our flexible subscription offering), we may experience increased contraction as such customers may elect to renew with shorter subscription periods, fewer cloud modules, fewer endpoints or smaller contract values, which may reduce our dollar-based net retention rate.” Flex is now 39% of ARR.
Fourth, and least discussed, the regulators are still there. The 10-Q states the company “has received requests for information from the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission relating to the Company’s recognition of revenue and reporting of ARR for transactions with certain customers, the July 19 Incident and related matters.” Those requests concern the exact metric the bull case runs on. Delta Air Lines’ Georgia suit also survived in part on 16 May 2025 and is in discovery.
There is also a capital-allocation tell. CrowdStrike has a $1.5bn repurchase authorisation with $1.3bn remaining at 31 July 2026, and it repurchased nothing in the quarter after buying $175.6m in Q1. Stock-based compensation and related payroll taxes ran at $399.0m, or 27.1% of revenue. Management is not buying its own stock here while issuing it at a quarter of the top line.
What the market is pricing at $227.96
On the FY27 guided diluted share count of 1,044m, market capitalisation is about $238.0bn. Net cash of $4.27bn, being $5.014bn of cash less $746.2m of long-term debt, gives an enterprise value of roughly $233.7bn. Trailing twelve-month free cash flow, being FY26’s $1,235.3m less first-half FY26’s $563.0m plus first-half FY27’s $845.9m, is $1,518m.
| Metric | Value at $227.96 | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Market capitalisation | $238.0bn | 1,044m FY27 guided diluted shares |
| Enterprise value | $233.7bn | Less $4.27bn net cash at 31 Jul 2026 |
| EV / FY27 guided revenue | 38.9x | $6,001m guide midpoint |
| EV / FY27 exit ARR | 35.4x | $6,607m guide midpoint |
| EV / trailing free cash flow | 154x | $1,518m TTM to 31 Jul 2026 |
| Free cash flow yield on EV | 0.65% | TTM basis |
| P/E on FY27 non-GAAP EPS | 182x | $1.255 guide midpoint |
| Rule of 40 (Q2 FY27) | 51.5 | 25.8% growth + 25.7% FCF margin |
Two observations follow. A 0.65% free cash flow yield discounts roughly a decade of the current compounding rate before an owner is paid anything by the business. And 182 times forward non-GAAP earnings rests on a number that adds back $399m of quarterly stock compensation.
For context on how fast a beat-and-raise gets repriced this season, Marvell posted record Q2 revenue, raised guidance and fell anyway, and Nvidia’s $96.2bn quarter was undone by its margin guide. The reaction function is the guide against the multiple, not the print.
Bull and bear drivers side by side
| Driver | Bull reading | Bear reading |
|---|---|---|
| Net new ARR $332.8m, +51% y/y | Record quarter, growth reaccelerating | Comparable was a depressed ~$220m post-outage |
| FY27 net new ARR guide 34% | Raised 630bp on a record pipeline | Implies ~$421m in Q4, up 27% on any prior record |
| Falcon Flex ARR $2.29bn, +101% | Consolidation working; 39% of ARR on the model | Commitments front-load ARR; 10-Q flags renewal contraction |
| Dollar-based net retention | Improved sequentially at 31 July 2026 | No number given; last printed 115% vs 119% pre-outage |
| Free cash flow $377.4m | Real cash; $5.01bn on the balance sheet | 154x EV to trailing FCF; 0.65% yield |
| Legal position | Class action and derivative suits dismissed; $14.5m recovery | Delta suit in discovery; DOJ and SEC requests open |
| Capital allocation | $1.3bn buyback authorisation available | Zero repurchased in Q2; SBC at 27.1% of revenue |
| 27 August price action | Biggest one-day gain in five years; record close | Only 1.08% above 13 August; peer median +10.73% |
Disconfirmation triggers
- 1. Kills the bull case: Q4 FY27 net new ARR below $360m, meaning the back-end-loaded half of the raise did not arrive.
- 2. Kills the bull case: the next Form 10-K discloses dollar-based net retention at or below 115% for 31 January 2027, showing no further recovery toward 119%.
- 3. Kills the bull case: FY27 free cash flow margin below 26%, versus 29.6% in the first half, indicating Flex is buying growth with payment terms.
- 4. Kills the bull case: the DOJ or SEC matters escalate from information requests to formal enforcement touching ARR recognition.
- 5. Kills the bear case: Q3 FY27 ending ARR beats the $6,188.4m top of the guide and the FY27 net new ARR target is raised a third time.
- 6. Kills the bear case: buybacks restart at scale, deploying a meaningful share of the remaining $1.3bn at these prices.
- 7. Kills the bear case: Falcon Flex ARR growth holds above 70% through FY28, showing the model expands rather than pulls forward.
- 8. Kills the bear case: the Delta matter settles for an amount absorbed without a material charge.
What would change the call
The most instructive precedent is three months old and involves this company. Between 6 May and 1 June 2026, CRWD ran from $117.02 to $195.54, a gain of 67.1% into the Q1 FY27 print. It then delivered a genuine beat, raised full-year net new ARR guidance by 520 basis points and announced a four-for-one split on 3 June. The stock fell 15.8% over the next five sessions.
That is the risk in buying the day after a 20.5% gap. The information is public, the guide is the consensus, and the marginal buyer pays 38.9 times revenue for a company whose full-year revenue guide has moved 1.75% since March. The same tension appears in FinanceFeeds’ work on CoreWeave and Coinbase, where the multiple, not the operating performance, is what moves.
What would genuinely re-rate the stock higher is not another beat. It is evidence that the AI-security attach is a new budget line rather than a reallocation of existing endpoint spend. The clearest tell is module adoption at eight or more, which moved from 25% to 26% in a single quarter. Above 30% by the end of FY28 and the land-and-expand engine is working again.
What would re-rate it lower is simpler. A quarter in which net new ARR misses and the company still declines to print a numeric net retention rate would tell the market the metric is being managed rather than reported. CrowdStrike disclosed a number annually through the fiscal 2026 10-K and now describes it directionally.
Frequently asked questions
When did CrowdStrike report its latest results and for which quarter?
CrowdStrike reported second quarter fiscal year 2027 results, covering the three months ended 31 July 2026, after the close on 26 August 2026, filed on Form 8-K under Item 2.02 that afternoon. The fiscal year ends 31 January, which is why a July quarter carries a fiscal 2027 label. The 20.5% move came the next session.
Why did CRWD stock jump 20.5%?
Record net new ARR of $332.8m, up 51% year on year, plus a 630-basis-point raise to full-year net new ARR growth guidance, taking it to 34% at the midpoint. But roughly half the move was sector beta: Okta reported the same evening and rose 28.63%, and seven security and software names that reported nothing rose a median 10.73% while the S&P 500 ETF gained 0.66%.
Has CrowdStrike fully recovered from the July 2024 outage?
Financially and legally, largely yes. The passenger class action was dismissed and affirmed on appeal in 2026, derivative suits were dismissed, and Q2 FY27 booked a $14.5m net insurance recovery rather than a cost. Commercially, not entirely: dollar-based net retention was 119% before the incident, fell to 112%, and had recovered only to 115% at 31 January 2026. The Delta suit and the DOJ and SEC requests remain open.
Is CRWD expensive at $227.96?
By any conventional measure, yes. The enterprise value of roughly $233.7bn equates to 38.9 times FY27 guided revenue, 35.4 times guided exit ARR and about 154 times trailing free cash flow of $1,518m, a yield of 0.65%. Non-GAAP EPS guidance of $1.25 to $1.26 puts the stock on roughly 182 times forward earnings, and that adds back $399m of quarterly stock compensation.
Is it too late to buy CRWD?
That is the wrong frame. The question is whether growth stays above 20% for two more years while a 39-times revenue multiple holds. Our bull case of $312 assumes it can; our bear case of $139 assumes the multiple normalises toward 20 times as growth settles in the mid-teens. Note the stock is only 1.08% above its 13 August close.
What is Falcon Flex and why does it matter so much?
Falcon Flex is CrowdStrike’s flexible consumption licence, letting customers commit a dollar amount and draw it across modules rather than buying seats per product. ARR from Flex accounts exceeded $2.29bn at 31 July 2026, up 101% and roughly 39% of total ARR. It drives the ARR reacceleration and carries the main renewal risk, since the 10-Q warns under-utilised flexible subscriptions can renew smaller.
Q3 FY27 results, covering the quarter ending 31 October 2026, are typically reported in early December and carry the guided ARR range of $6,184.4m to $6,188.4m. CrowdStrike enters the second half with an accelerating top line, a net cash position, most of its outage litigation behind it and a valuation that requires all of it to keep working. The price has already booked the recovery; the operating metrics are still finishing it. This article is analysis, not investment advice.
