Cybersecurity stocks in the red following Fortinet, Cloudflare results

Shares in major cybersecurity services providers tumbled in Friday premarket trading after sector names Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) and Cloudflare (NYSE:NYSE:NET) reported results.

Their shares are down 6.6% and 15.1%, respectively.

Fortinet reported adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $0.43, which was $0.05 higher than analyst expectations. The company's total revenue for the quarter was $1.35 billion, marking a 7% year-over-year increase and exceeding the consensus estimate of $1.34 billion.

Still, the company's shares fell.

Commenting on the report, BTIG analysts said Q1 results were “soft,” and highlighted an unchanged outlook for 2024 billings.

“Most notably, billings declined 6.3% y/y in Q1’24 vs our estimate of -4.0% (Street -5.1%) and was towards the lower end of guidance,” analysts said.

“While the company maintained the billings outlook for 2024 the Q2 guide was slightly below the street and any potential for a recovery back towards 10% at some point this year now looks highly unlikely,” they added.

In a separate development, Cloudflare's fiscal first-quarter earnings amounted to an EPS of $0.16, surpassing the expected $0.13. The company's revenue reached $378.6 million, also beating the forecast of $373.24 million.

Looking ahead, Cloudflare has set its Q2 2024 EPS guidance at $0.14, which is marginally higher than the consensus estimate of $0.13. The company's revenue forecast for the second quarter ranges between $393.5 million and $394.5 million, closely aligning with the consensus projection.

For the entire year of 2024, Cloudflare expects its EPS to be in the range of $0.60 to $0.61, with the lower end meeting the analysts' expectations, and anticipates full-year revenue to be between $1.648 billion and $1.652 billion, matching the consensus.

Analysts at BTIG said the company’s results were solid but they believe that most investors would find the unchanged 2024 outlook “disappointing.” Hence the premarket sell-off.

“Guidance for 2024 was left unchanged due to conservatism around the macro environment,” analysts wrote, adding that “bulls wanted more.”

“Specifically, we think investors were hoping that strength in SSE (LON:SSE) and other new products could drive a more pronounced reacceleration in revenue growth in Q1 and that a pathway to 30% + growth would be more prevalent following the print,” BTIG continued.

Earlier today, Cyberark stock rose marginally after the company reported results.

In response to these developments, Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ:PANW) shares are trading more than 1.8% lower in premarket trade while CrowdStrike (NASDAQ:CRWD) stock is down 1%.