The 2022 Nasdaq Composite bear market undermined investors' confidence in many tech-focused stocks. Some were market darlings during the pandemic as their businesses surged and traders pushed their prices to nosebleed valuations. Now, a significant number are seeing slowing growth and massive share price declines, leading to questions about whether these stocks can return to their all-time highs.
Some of those high-flying tech stocks were clearly overvalued and deserved a correction. But secular growth trends continue to drive the businesses of a select bunch of tech growth stocks. Crowdstrike Holdings (CRWD 3.63%) and MongoDB (MDB 7.69%), for example, are two companies delivering growth regardless of how the macro economy performs. Let's take a look at why these two Nasdaq stocks have what it takes to carry your portfolio going forward.
1. Crowdstrike
Crowdstrike provides cybersecurity for the modern era. Its software operates on a cloud-native platform that offers endpoint security, secures workloads in the cloud, and protects both identities and data. This company stood out by altering the focus of security. Previously, cybersecurity vendors focused on identifying threats as attacks occurred and reacting to them. Crowdstrike's software took a more proactive approach, addressing indicators that attacks were coming, but before the attacks occurred.
The company benefited from rapid growth, particularly during the pandemic's lockdown phases. Nonetheless, like many of its tech counterparts, its stock suffered this year amid slowing growth and mounting losses.
Yet one could still characterize it as a magnificent growth stock. In the third quarter of its fiscal 2023 (which ended Oct. 31), revenue increased by 53% year over year. Its $1.6 billion in reported revenue for the first three quarters of its fiscal 2023 was 57% higher than the prior-year period.
Also, CrowdStrike reported losses attributable to the company of $136 million in the first three quarters of fiscal 2023. While that's a lower sum than it reported in the year-ago period, the company did run an operating loss. And in 2022's down market, investors have not been as tolerant of losses.
The stock's valuation definitely got more reasonable in 2022. Its price-to-sales ratio stands at around 13. That is admittedly pricier than competitor Palo Alto Networks, which trades at 9 times sales, but it is a record-low valuation for CrowdStrike. With the need for cybersecurity only growing, the stock should reward investors over the longer term.
2. MongoDB
MongoDB offers its clients next-generation database systems. Long-time users of such systems will recognize the relational database, which organizes data neatly into rows and columns. But when it comes to handling data types such as audio clips, photos, and social media posts, that older model does not apply well. To address this, MongoDB developed a database that can neatly arrange and sort those data types, and developers have flocked to it for benefits such as its code-native data access and flexible document schemas.
As a result, MongoDB grew significantly in popularity. It claimed more than 39,000 customers as of Oct. 31, the end of its fiscal 2023 third quarter. That was a 26% year-over-year increase, showing that it's holding up well against competition from Amazon, Alphabet, and database pioneer Oracle.
MongoDB's financials reflect this success. For the first three quarters of its fiscal 2023, revenue rose 47% year over year to $923 million. However, the increases did not stop the company from bleeding cash: It lost $281 million in the first nine months of its fiscal 2023.
Nonetheless, MongoDB recently surprised investors by delivering an adjusted profit in its fiscal Q3, and the stock spiked higher after the earnings report. That lifted its price-to-sales ratio to almost 11, indicating the sales multiple has just begun to bounce from the multiyear lows at which it has recently traded. That valuation and the post-earnings reaction from fiscal Q3 earnings could indicate limited downside.
