Watch CNBC's full interview with Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora & CyberArk Software CEO Matt Cohen
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Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Palo Alto Networks, Rapid7, Monday.com, GitLab, and Atlassian Stocks Trade Up, What You Need To Know
What Happened? A number of stocks jumped in the afternoon session after cooler-than-expected inflation data ignited investor optimism for a potential Federal Reserve interest rate cut. The July Consumer Price Index (CPI) report, an important measure of inflation, came in cooler than expected, showing prices holding steady at an annual rate of 2.7%. This data has led to speculation that the Federal Reserve might lower interest rates. For growth-focused sectors like SaaS, lower interest rates are particularly beneficial as they increase the present value of companies' future earnings, making their stocks more appealing. The stock market overreacts to news, and big price drops can present good opportunities to buy high-quality stocks. Among others, the following stocks were impacted: Network Security company Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ:PANW) jumped 4.1%. Is now the time to buy Palo Alto Networks? Access our full analysis report here, it's free. Vulnerability Management company Rapid7 (NASDAQ:RPD) jumped 8.6%. Is now the time to buy Rapid7? Access our full analysis report here, it's free. Project Management Software company (NASDAQ:MNDY) jumped 3.7%. Is now the time to buy Access our full analysis report here, it's free. Developer Operations company GitLab (NASDAQ:GTLB) jumped 3.1%. Is now the time to buy GitLab? Access our full analysis report here, it's free. Project Management Software company Atlassian (NASDAQ:TEAM) jumped 3.1%. Is now the time to buy Atlassian? Access our full analysis report here, it's free. Zooming In On Rapid7 (RPD) Rapid7's shares are somewhat volatile and have had 12 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today's move indicates the market considers this news meaningful but not something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business. The biggest move we wrote about over the last year was 6 months ago when the stock dropped 8% on the news that the company reported weak fourth-quarter 2024 results: its full-year revenue guidance fell short of Wall Street's estimates. The company expects only 2% to 3% revenue growth in 2025, signaling a sharp deceleration from the 9% growth achieved in 2024. Revenue grew modestly by 5% year on year for the quarter, driven primarily by product subscription sales, which rose by 6%. However, professional services revenue declined by 5%, weighing on overall growth. Earnings also fell below expectations as margins shrunk. Looking ahead, management is prioritizing expansion in MDR and exposure management solutions, as it shifts away from the more competitive traditional VM market. While the long-term pipeline appears healthy, the company acknowledged that larger deal sizes and longer sales cycles create uncertainty around the growth acceleration of some key products. Overall, this quarter could have been better. Rapid7 is down 48.1% since the beginning of the year, and at $20.42 per share, it is trading 53.5% below its 52-week high of $43.94 from December 2024. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Rapid7's shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $355.81. Here at StockStory, we certainly understand the potential of thematic investing. Diverse winners from Microsoft (MSFT) to Alphabet (GOOG), Coca-Cola (KO) to Monster Beverage (MNST) could all have been identified as promising growth stories with a megatrend driving the growth. So, in that spirit, we've identified a relatively under-the-radar profitable growth stock benefiting from the rise of AI, available to you FREE via this link. Sign in to access your portfolio
Axios
3 hours ago
- Axios
Cybersecurity's dual AI reality: Hacks and defenses both turbocharged
Underestimate how quickly adversarial hackers are advancing in generative AI, and your company could be patient zero in an outbreak of AI-enabled cyberattacks. Overestimate that risk, and you could quickly blow millions of dollars only to realize you were preparing for the wrong thing. The big picture: That dichotomy has divided the cybersecurity industry into two competing narratives about how AI is transforming the threat landscape. One says defenders still have the upper hand. Cybercriminals lack the money and computing resources to build out AI-powered tools, and large language models (LLMs) have clear limitations in their ability to carry out offensive strikes. This leaves defenders with time to tap AI's potential for themselves. Then there's the darker view. Cybercriminals are already leaning on open-source LLMs to build tools that can scan internet-connected devices to see if they have vulnerabilities, discover zero-day bugs, and write malware. They're only going to get better, and quickly. Between the lines: While not everyone fits comfortably into one of those two camps, closed-door sessions at Black Hat and DEF CON last week made clear that the primary divide is over how much security execs or researchers expect generative AI tools to advance over the next year. Right now, models aren't the best at making human-like judgments, such as recognizing when legitimate tools are being abused for malicious purposes. And running a series of AI agents will require cybercriminals and nation-states to have enough resources to pay the cloud bills they rack up, Michael Sikorski, CTO of Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 threat research team, told Axios. But LLMs are improving rapidly. Sikorski predicts that malicious hackers will use a victim organization's own AI agents to launch an attack after breaking into their infrastructure. The flip side: Executives told me the cybersecurity industry isn't as resilient to AI-driven workforce disruptions as they once believed. That means fewer humans and more AI playing defense against the expected wave of AI-powered attacks. During a presentation at DEF CON, a member of Anthropic's red team said its AI model, Claude, will "soon" be able to perform at the level of a senior security researcher. Driving the news: Several cybersecurity companies debuted advancements in AI agents at the Black Hat conference last week — signaling that cyber defenders could soon have the tools to catch up to adversarial hackers. Microsoft shared details about a prototype for a new agent that can automatically detect malware — although it's able to detect only 24% of malicious files as of now. Trend Micro released new AI-driven "digital twin" capabilities that let companies simulate real-world cyber threats in a safe environment walled off from their actual systems. Several companies and research teams also publicly released open-source tools that can automatically identify and patch vulnerabilities as part of the government-backed AI Cyber Challenge. Yes, but: Threat actors are now using those AI-enabled tools to speed up reconnaissance and dream up brand-new attack vectors for targeting each company, John Watters, CEO of iCounter and a former Mandiant executive, told Axios. That's different from the traditional methods, where hackers would exploit the same known vulnerability to target dozens of organizations. "The net effect is everybody becomes patient zero," Watters said. "The world's not prepared to deal with that." The intrigue: Open-source AI models have blown the door wide open for cybercriminals to build custom tools for vulnerability scanning and targeted reconnaissance. Many of these models have improved rapidly in the last year, and many attackers can now run these models solely on their own machines, without connecting to the internet, Shane Caldwell, principal research engineer at Dreadnode, which uses AI tools to test clients' systems, told Axios. The rise of reinforcement learning — a method where AI models learn and adapt through trial-and-error interactions with their environment — means attackers no longer need to rely on more resource-intensive, supervised training approaches to develop powerful tools. What's next: By next year, the threat landscape could be completely turned on its head, Watters warned.
CNBC
5 hours ago
- CNBC
An analyst just upgraded a cybersecurity stock that we've been pounding the table on
Every weekday the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer holds a "Morning Meeting" livestream at 10:20 a.m. ET. Here's a recap of Tuesday's key moments. 1. The S & P 500 and Nasdaq Composite jumped to record highs Tuesday following July's consumer price index report, which showed that headline inflation accelerated less than expected. "I don't think the numbers are as reliable as they used to be," said Jim Cramer, referring to recent changes in the way that data for the CPI report is compiled, such as the increased reliance on less precise methods. We first covered some of those back in June after a report on staffing shortages at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nevertheless, the market was now pricing in roughly 94% odds of a quarter-point rate cut at the Federal Reserve's September policy, according to the CME's FedWatch tool. A day ago, the odds were at 86%. 2. Nvidia is in the headlines once again. After President Donald Trump on Monday hinted at another possible deal to let Nvidia sell a downgraded version of its Blackwell chips to China, on Tuesday we saw more stories about Beijing telling companies in the country to avoid using Nvidia's H20 chips due to national security concerns. Jim noted that Nvidia has pushed back against claims that its chips have "backdoors" that could allow remote access to control them. The update out of Beijing comes just a day after it was announced that, in exchange for U.S. export licenses, both Nvidia and rival Advanced Micro Devices would give the U.S. government a 15% cut of chip sales to China. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang "has been an amazing diplomat so maybe he could kind of cool tensions on both sides," said Jeff Marks, director of portfolio analysis for the Club. 3. Club name Palo Alto Networks was upgraded to a buy-equivalent rating at Piper Sandler. Analysts based their view on early success in the cybersecurity provider's "platformization" strategy that will help drive healthy topline growth in the future. Free cash flow headwinds for the company are also subsiding, according to the analysts, who raised their price target to $225 a share from $200. They also argued the CyberArk acquisition is a high-quality asset that will help fill a large gap in Palo Alto's portfolio. While the stock has been punished since its interest in CyberArk was first reported, we recommended buying the weakness on multiple occasions and finally were able to do so Monday. Jim said it's wrong to suggest that Palo Alto was buying CyberArk because its existing business was falling apart. 4. Stocks covered in Tuesday's rapid fire at the end of the video were: Cardinal Health , Chipotle Mexican Group , Circle Internet Group , On Holding AG , and Five Below . (Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust is long NVDA, PANW . See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
