3 Cybersecurity Stocks With Room to Run in 2023

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As the bear market came barreling through 2022, growth stocks and tech stocks took the brunt of the beating. However, one theme that stood strong was cybersecurity. As a result, that should have investors looking at cybersecurity stocks to buy.

Let’s face the facts, though.

Cybersecurity stocks also took a good beating, as they too are growth and tech stocks. Not to mention, many of these names tend to sport elevated valuations. That made it easy for bears to short, as these stocks simply cannot support a high valuation in a rising-rate, bearish environment.

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That said, spend an hour or two digging through the press releases and conference calls for the three stocks listed below. Those management teams are not shy whatsoever about how well business is going.

With that, let’s look at three cybersecurity stocks to buy.

PANW

Palo Alto Networks

$161.73

CRWD

CrowdStrike

$142.01

DDOG

Datadog

$78.12

Palo Alto Networks (PANW)

An image of a circle web with a lock icon in the center
An image of a circle web with a lock icon in the center

Source: vs148 / Shutterstock

Without a question, Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ:PANW) is the blue-chip stock when we’re talking about cybersecurity stocks to buy.

The company recently reported its fourth-quarter results. Despite a terrible year for the markets, Palo Alto put up 30% revenue growth last year. For this year, management isn’t flinching. They expect 25% revenue growth this year, more than analysts were expecting at the time of the report.

During the conference call, management said many of its customers “increasingly have the confidence” to make longer-term deals with Palo Alto. Furthermore, “the vast majority of our customers continue on their investments here despite the expected short-term macro impacts.”

The truth is rather straightforward: Companies continue to invest in cybersecurity because they have to. In good markets or bad — and in strong economies or weak — cyber-criminals are constantly at work. They are looking to hack, steal and sell customer information. So regardless of whether companies are in prosperous times or lean times, they need to keep their defensive systems engaged.

CrowdStrike (CRWD)

Mobile phone with website of American software company CrowdStrike Holdings (CRWD) Inc. on screen in front of website. Focus on top-center of phone display. Unmodified photo.
Mobile phone with website of American software company CrowdStrike Holdings (CRWD) Inc. on screen in front of website. Focus on top-center of phone display. Unmodified photo.

Source: T. Schneider / Shutterstock.com

When we look outside of Palo Alto, we start to find higher growth stocks like CrowdStrike (NASDAQ:CRWD). At the same time, that also means we find cybersecurity stocks with higher valuations.

For example, this company sports trailing revenue growth of 61% — that’s not a typo, 61%!

For FY 2023, estimates call for 54% growth, then 32.5% growth or more in each of the next three fiscal years. While it’s possible that these estimates do not come to fruition, it shows just how strong the growth is that this company is enjoying right now.