Zoom Falls Again, but This Cloud Security Stock Is on the Rise

Monday didn't see much enthusiasm from investors, as market participants seemed uncertain what to expect from what could be a tumultuous week. With the Federal Reserve's upcoming annual symposium at Jackson Hole potentially introducing more risk in the economic outlook, investors were downbeat about stock markets. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI -0.30%), S&P 500 (^GSPC 0.11%), and Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC 0.56%) were down as much as 2.5% on the day.

Data source: Yahoo! Finance.

After the closing bell, the losses continued for video-conferencing specialist Zoom Video Communications (ZM 0.64%), which released its latest financial report. However, another key player in the cloud space, Palo Alto Networks (PANW -0.15%), fared much better. Here's a closer look at both of these companies.

Zooming lower

Shares of Zoom Video Communications were down 8% in after-hours trading late Monday afternoon, adding to the 2% decline it suffered during the regular trading session. The video specialist didn't give investors the results they had wanted to see, and it expects that its immediate future could be uncertain for quite a while.

Revenue growth for Zoom slowed nearly to a standstill, and its bottom line took a big hit. Sales of $1.10 billion were up just 8% year over year. Adjusted income of $323.5 million was down 22% from the year-ago period. The resulting $1.05 per share in adjusted earnings compared unfavorably to last year's $1.36 per share figure.

Some metrics seemed more favorable. Customer counts on the enterprise side were up 18% to more than 204,000. Net dollar expansion rates among the enterprise customer base came in at 120%, and Zoom counted 37% more customers spending at least $100,000 over the past 12 months on its service.

However, shareholders really didn't like Zoom's projections for the rest of its fiscal year. In the third quarter, the company expects flat sequential revenue of around $1.1 billion, with adjusted earnings of just $0.82 to $0.83 per share. For the full year, revenue of roughly $4.39 billion would produce adjusted earnings of $3.66 to $3.69 per share. For a stock that used to be heralded as a growth engine, Zoom is having trouble getting things started back up after its explosive gains during the first years of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Palo Alto joins the stock split crowd

Shares of Palo Alto Networks were up more than 9% in after-hours trading. The cybersecurity company announced favorable results for the fiscal fourth quarter ended July 31 and said it would do a stock split.

Palo Alto's numbers were strong. Revenue of $1.6 billion was up 27% year over year. Adjusted net income of $254 million was up 57% from the year-ago quarter. Palo Alto even made money without accounting adjustments, marking the first time in four years it had achieved that milestone.

CEO Nikesh Arora was upbeat about Palo Alto's momentum. The company's next-generation security platform is seeing considerable popularity, and it has done a good job of executing on sales opportunities to help foster fundamental growth. The good news showed up in Palo Alto's future guidance, which calls for around $9 billion in revenue for fiscal 2023, producing roughly $9.40 to $9.50 per share in adjusted earnings.

For some investors, the best news was that Palo Alto intends to do a 3-for-1 stock split. With investors receiving two extra shares for every share they currently own as of Sept. 14, Palo Alto is signaling it expects even better results down the road -- and shareholders hope that they will profit from Palo Alto's continuing success.