Dramatic plunges from the major indexes like we've seen lately are frightening enough to scare off most investors. With the S&P 500 index down more than 20% and the tech stock-laden Nasdaq Composite down about 30% this year, buying stocks while they're on the way up hasn't been an option.
If you take a long-term approach, though, there hasn't been a better time to put your money to work in the stock market since 2009. That's because stocks tend to fall much faster than they rise, but over time, they rise more than they fall. A recent examination of past bear markets and the S&P 500 found that during the last century, the index has never suffered a negative 20-year period.
Nobody knows when plunging markets will find a bottom, but the best stocks will most likely bounce back once it does. These two cybersecurity stocks are heavily discounted from the peak prices they reached last year. Here's why they have a better-than-average chance to come roaring back.
Zscaler
The castle-and-moat data protection strategy that nearly all IT departments formerly employed made a lot of sense when computers were large and expensive. Now that businesses can rely on their employees to connect their own devices, remote work is upending the castle-and-moat strategy and driving businesses into the arms of Zscaler (ZS +2.19%), a cloud-native cybersecurity vendor.
Zscaler's secure access service edge (SASE), called the Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange, allows a company's employees to safely access all the applications they need to do their jobs. Companies are rapidly transitioning to the cloud, and Zscaler's platform is outpacing the competition. Total revenue during the fiscal third quarter ended April 30, 2022 soared 63% year over year to $267 million.
NASDAQ: ZS
Key Data Points
Zscaler is still in a high-growth phase and losing money on a generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP, basis. Investors will be glad to know management expects income from operations to reach a range of between $106 million and $108 million during fiscal 2022, which ends in July.
We can be reasonably confident about Zscaler's ability to remain a top player in the cloud security industry. The company currently processes over 240 billion requests per day and blocks millions of threats in the process. With more data to feed its artificial intelligence-powered security engine than the competition, Zscaler should be able to maintain a leading share of the exploding market for cloud-based security.
CrowdStrike
While the Zscaler Zero Trust platform allows clients to safely access their applications and data, CrowdStrike's (CRWD +3.79%) Falcon platform actively monitors for threats that come from an increasing variety of cloud-connected devices or endpoints.
NASDAQ: CRWD
Key Data Points
Demand for endpoint security is growing so fast that revenue during the fiscal first quarter, which ended on April 30, jumped by 61% year over year to $488 million. CrowdStrike could continue growing its top line at this blazing fast pace for years to come. The company estimates its total available market at $58 billion annually right now and expects it to reach $71 billion by 2024.
CrowdStrike is the leading endpoint protection provider at the moment and has an advantage that could help it stay on top. Lessons learned from attacks on one client are immediately applied to all, and this network effect gets stronger with each new client.
There's no telling if the stock market has hit a bottom already or if it could get worse from here. With growing advantages in the unstoppable cybersecurity industry, though, these stocks have a good chance to outperform the market over the long run.
