CrowdStrike's Next Earnings Report on Aug. 26 Could Send the Stock Soaring. Here's Why.

Shares of cybersecurity titan CrowdStrike (NASDAQ:CRWD) have already had an amazing 2026. They began the year at about $117/share and briefly surpassed a record $225/share earlier this month. They're now trading around $186/share, which is still a 59% gain year-to-date.

All that growth has pushed the company's valuation up to an astonishing 151x forward earnings. That's so high that some investors are questioning whether CrowdStrike's shares can go any higher, even if it reports blowout Q2 results in tomorrow's earnings report.

But looking at the state of the cybersecurity industry and CrowdStrike's recent performance, it seems clear that the stock could, in fact, soar after its upcoming earnings report. Here's why.

Image source: The Motley Fool.

What CrowdStrike looks like heading into earnings

There's no company quite like CrowdStrike. Its cloud-native Falcon platform uses machine learning to proactively detect potential cybersecurity threats and to provide endpoint, identity, and data security.

Endpoint security – protecting devices such as laptops and mobile devices that connect to the internet – is a particularly important focus for the company and its customers. Studies estimate that as many as 90% of successful cyberattacks originate at endpoint devices.

CrowdStrike's offerings keep getting more popular. In Q1, its revenue grew by 26% year over year (YOY) to $1.39 billion. The company increased its Q2 revenue guidance to $1.44 billion, up from $1.36 billion, and its non-GAAP earnings per share (EPS) estimate to a range of $1.16 to $1.17/share, up from $1.06 to $1.07/share.

Can CrowdStrike's stock really go any higher?

To answer that question, let's look at what just happened to CrowdStrike's fellow cybersecurity company, Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT).

In May, Fortinet reported strong Q1 results, with both product revenue and non-GAAP earnings up 41% YOY. Better yet, the company raised its full-year revenue guidance from a midpoint of $7.6 billion to $7.8 billion, and increased its midpoint EPS guidance from $2.97/share to $3.13/share.

Fortinet's shares immediately jumped nearly 30% after the announcement. They continued to rise over the next few months, and were up 70% on the eve of the company's Q2 earnings report in late July.

Many investors thought the big run-up in Fortinet's share price meant there was little further upside for the stock. That's a lot like CrowdStrike's current situation.

But Fortinet shattered expectations, hiking full-year guidance again to an $8.1 billion revenue midpoint and an EPS midpoint of $3.44/share. The stock shot up another 9.8% in response.

Fortinet's valuation is still much lower than CrowdStrike's, but its post-earnings bump shows that a recent run-up in share price doesn't necessarily prevent a stock from making further gains.

Is CrowdStrike's Q2 likely to impress?

There's no way to tell how good (or bad) CrowdStrike's Q2 results will be until they're announced tomorrow after market close. But other industry players like Fortinet, Zscaler (NASDAQ:ZS), and Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ:PANW) have seen double-digit YOY revenue growth so far this year, and that trend seems likely to apply to CrowdStrike.

Cybersecurity is front and center after recent high-profile incidents, including a series of cyberattacks on U.S. public water systems and multiple reports of agentic AI models performing successful "jailbreaks," escaping their sandbox environments and hacking into other organizations' online systems in the real world.

Image source: Getty Images.

These incidents, plus the ongoing war in Iran, have highlighted the importance of strong cybersecurity, so it's no surprise that cybersecurity companies are seeing an uptick in demand. CrowdStrike's Q2 report is likely to follow this trend.

The only question is whether it will be enough to satisfy investors who have already bid CrowdStrike's share price up into the stratosphere. But given CrowdStrike's existing clout and its primary niche – endpoint security, where many of the recent cyberattacks have focused – it could very easily beat these already-lofty expectations and send the stock soaring further.

John Bromels has positions in CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, and Zscaler. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends CrowdStrike, Fortinet, and Zscaler. The Motley Fool recommends Palo Alto Networks. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.