Cybersecurity stocks are back with a vengeance. Here are three in Josh Brown’s list
(This is The Best Stocks in the Market , brought to you by Josh Brown and Sean Russo of Ritholtz Wealth Management.) Josh — Of all the horrendous nonsense we were forced to entertain this spring, none of it was more horrendously nonsensical than the idea of people vibe-coding their own cybersecurity solutions. I was sitting in the office with Batnick one afternoon and we noticed CrowdStrike and Palo Alto dropping double-digits intra-day. He’s like “they’re saying cyber stocks are the next AI disruption group.” I remember saying “Get the **** outta here” and wishing I didn’t already have a full position in CRWD with a cost basis in the 100’s. Anyway, that ended up being as laughable a few months later as it sounded at the time. The big cyber stocks are up huge right now. It’s perhaps the only area in software where investors see the AI revolution as a growth catalyst rather than an existential threat. Plain and simple: Cybersecurity is the one line item on the corporate IT budget that’s non-negotiable and guaranteed to grow as far as the eye can see. And, paradoxically, the better AI gets, the less these companies can be disrupted because of how dangerous the potential hacking threats will become. This puts it in its own category and separates it from the Salesforces and the Atlassians of the world. When Anthropic was forced to disclose a highly disturbing development involving its Mythos model detecting hundreds of security flaws at some of the largest corporate entities in the world, it created something called Project Glasswing to address the problem. This initiative’s purpose is to bring together some of the most systemically important players on the web to find solutions to these flaws before the bad guys get access to newer, more powerful AI tools. The list of partner companies named in the Glasswing press release included Amazon Web Services, Anthropic, Apple, Broadcom, Cisco, CrowdStrike, Google, JPMorgan Chase, the Linux Foundation, Microsoft, Nvidia and Palo Alto Networks. The bull market for cyber security is global and will endure, almost regardless of what may happen with LLM innovations. You are not going to see the AI labs and their offspring eliminate the need for enterprise-class SaaS in the cybersecurity space. You’re going to see the opposite. That’s what the companies’ earnings results just told you. That’s what their share prices are telling you now. We’ll show you CRWD , PANW and FTNT in a moment, but first, the usual high-level best stocks stats. Sean, take it away… As of May 18 , there are 184 names on The Best Stocks in the Market list. Top sector ranking: Top industries: Top 5 best stocks by relative strength: Sector spotlight: Cybersecurity Fortinet, Inc. (FTNT): Sean — Fortinet makes the digital “locks and walls” that protect corporate networks from hackers and cyber attacks. They sell both the hardware that sits inside a company’s IT infrastructure and ongoing software subscriptions that keep those defenses up to date. Think of them as a one-stop shop for network security — competing with companies like Palo Alto Networks (who we’re writing about below). FTNT has had a rough ride since 2025. Before the SAASpocalypse really got going, FTNT was already in a 32% drawdown coming into 2026. The company had a number of poor earnings reports in 2025, headlined by large enterprise customers delaying purchases to wait for more updated security offerings. Then Claude hit. The stock was bouncing off its lows, looking to break above its range going back to the summer of 2025, and then FTNT reported earnings which immediately sent the stock above its range and past prior all-time highs. FTNT beat on top and bottom lines, growing revenue 20% year over year and EPS up 41% year over year. Their cybersecurity networking segment (66% of billings) was up 32% year over year, AI-driven security operations were up 23%, and significant capital was returned to shareholders. $820M of stock was repurchased for the quarter and $500M in debt was paid. Although a lot of software is still in AI-purgatory, stocks like FTNT, PANW and CRWD are clawing their way back. Here’s Josh on FTNT technicals. Josh — This move in Fortinet is dramatic. I don’t want you chasing it here but if you’re long, you should stay long. The stock spent roughly 18 months in a well-defined descending channel, making lower highs from the upper $90s all the way through the base, while both the 50-day and 200-day sloped lower overhead. It was unbuyable. Then in the first quarter of 2026, the price compressed into the $83 to $88 range and repeatedly found buyers at the rising channel floor. Then came the Q1 earnings print on May 6, and FTNT exploded out of the prior range. The stock is now at $124, sitting above both moving averages for the first time in a year and a half, and that channel breakout is as clean a technical event as you’ll find on any chart right now. The problem is it’s too good. RSI is at 85. Professionals don’t initiate new positions in a stock this overbought. They take their time and let the price action cool. I’d say the stock needs a few sessions of digestion before the next leg is confirmed. A healthy flag or tight consolidation here would be constructive. Traders keep it simple: $100 to $105 is the top of the prior channel, and that’s where support should now live. A flush back below that level without a fast recovery would be a yellow flag. Investors use the 200-day at $83 as their reference. Price was below that average for most of the past year. Now it’s above it. Staying above it matters. If I were looking at the name, I would be stalking it, awaiting a low-volume, low-velocity retracement into the $110 – $115 area and then use that $100 level as my risk management. Palo Alto Networks, Inc. (PANW): Sean — PANW, also caught in the software crossfire, was down 36% from highs through late February, bottoming at the same time CrowdStrike bottomed, which we’re saving for last. Palo Alto’s goal in cyber is to sell everything under one roof, they want to be the Amazon of cyber. Instead of companies buying 10 different security tools from 10 different vendors, PANW wants to sell them everything under one roof, a strategy they call “platformization.” Apparently, it’s working: they now have 1,550 customers fully on their platform, those customers are spending 19% more year over year, and the subscription business is growing 33% — with their standout AI-powered security operations tool and their cloud security suite both surpassing $500M+ in recurring revenue. They’ve also been aggressive on acquisitions, buying CyberArk (identity security) and Chronosphere (cloud monitoring) to plug gaps, and are targeting $20 billion in subscription revenue by 2030. It’s been a whole 57 trading days since PANW’s low — the stock is up 71% over that period, making it the second-best 57 day stretch in company history behind its Covid bounce. Josh — They really beat the hell out of this stock all year until recently. It’s as parabolic as FTNT and I also think you’d benefit by giving it a minute. But there’s nothing not to like here about how decisive this come-from-behind victory looks. Palo Alto looked at its own chart and said “Oh yeah?” and then reported an absolute gusher of an earnings quarter. But it hasn’t been an easy road for a long time. The stock carved out a long, choppy base from the mid-$130s up through resistance in the $180 to $190 range, retesting that ceiling multiple times before the buyers finally won the argument. The 50-day crossed back above the 200-day during the basing process, and once price cleared $190 with conviction, the move accelerated fast. PANW is now at $245, running well above both moving averages, and the next meaningful test is whether it can hold above that former resistance zone on any pullback while building toward a clean push through $250. RSI is at 86 for this one. That number reflects a stock in a powerful trend off a completed base, not a stock that got carried away on a one-week squeeze. The momentum here has been consistent and building, which is exactly what you want to see when a name is working through multimonth overhead supply and coming out the other side clean. Traders use the gap zone in the low $200s as the first place to reassess, because that’s where price lifted off and where buyers should show up again if the trend is intact. $215 is the 10-day, which we rarely use as a line in the sand except when we’re talking about charts that are nearly vertical. The risk-averse may want to use $215 rather than $200 given how far above historic support we are. Longer-term Investors can keep a stop at the bottom of the gap, which was at $190. If it gets back into the post-earnings gap, something’s probably going wrong. I don’t think we’ll see those levels again, barring some sort of market-wide panic. CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. (CRWD): Sean — CrowdStrike protects company devices — laptops, servers and cloud infrastructure from hackers using AI — and their edge is that every customer’s threat data feeds a shared intelligence network that makes the whole platform smarter over time. They’re “AI-ing” cybersecurity like no one else. Things change fast. The stock was down 37% in February while its forward multiple on earnings was down 52% from highs. The multiple at which investors are willing to pay nearly doubled from 72x in February to 122x today. Don’t worry about the multiple, though. The growth is exceptional for this stock. Revenue is up 23%, they just crossed $5.25 billion in recurring revenue, and customers keep buying more. Over half now use six or more of their products, up from just a handful a few years ago. Their flexible subscription model (Falcon Flex) has been a huge hit, growing 120% year over year, essentially letting customers buy a bundle and unlock tools as needed rather than signing rigid contracts. CRWD is also gearing up for earnings in early June, with expectations of 24% top line revenue growth, 54% EBIT growth, and 46% EPS growth, all year over year. The growth has not slowed down, which is a big reason why price has caught up. Josh — As I mentioned, CRWD is the one I own personally. I’ve become friendly with George Kurtz, the founder and CEO, and he’s been on my podcast a bunch of times. Everything he’s ever said to CrowdStrike investors that they were going to focus on has worked. This is one of the best investments I’ve ever made, having bought the stock when it came public. So I am less affected by the local ups and downs, although I’m always paying attention. CRWD spent the better part of a year building its case and shrugging off the disruption insanity. The stock peaked near $570, rolled over hard, and spent months grinding through a deep correction that took it all the way back to the low $300s. What followed was a classic accumulation base: higher lows, repeated tests of the $400 to $420 area that held, and eventually the 50-day turning up and crossing back through the 200-day while price coiled. The breakout came with authority. CRWD is now at $607, clearing not just the prior base highs but busting out into a new all-time high. I think the structure of the move strongly favors continuation. Momentum is scalding hot with an RSI reading at 83 to end the week. Same read as PANW: this is trend momentum off a long base, not a short-term blowoff. The volume pattern through the base and into the breakout supports the idea that this is a genuine rotation back into the name rather than a speculative run. Traders watch $540 to $550, which is where the breakout originated and where the first wave of demand should re-emerge on any softness. This could absolutely happen – it’s like a $60 stock falling back to $54, happens every day. Investors step back and use the 50-day at $446 as their risk management anchor. Price crossed above it, retested it, and launched from there. Two solid touches make it THE level. A close back below it changes the picture. DISCLOSURES: (None) All opinions expressed by the CNBC Pro contributors are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CNBC, or its parent company or affiliates, and may have been previously disseminated by them on television, radio, internet or another medium. 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