We recently published a list of 10 Hottest Mega-Cap Stocks of 2025. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Crowdstrike Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWD) stands against other hottest mega-cap stocks of 2025.
In 2024, companies poured money into Artificial Intelligence infrastructure in a bid to outpace each other in the AI race. The communication services and information technology sectors led the the large-cap stocks in terms of returns. AI-driven hype was so significant that for the first time since 1998, the S&P’s large-cap index registered two consecutive years of 20%+ gains.
2025 may well be the year of reckoning for AI. Some analysts have questioned the massive AI spending throughout the last year. Their concerns and predictions were dealt a reality check though when Bill Gates’ tech giant announced it planned to spend $80 billion on AI in fiscal 2025. Consequently, semiconductor stocks rallied, reminding everyone that the AI rally wasn’t over by any means.
Not surprisingly, the list is dominated by chipmakers, who we believe will be critical to the market’s returns this year. To come up with the 10 hottest mega-cap stocks of 2025, we considered stocks with at least $75 billion market capitalization.
Security personnel at their consoles, monitoring a global network of threats in real-time.
Crowdstrike Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWD)
Crowdstrike’s (NASDAQ:CRWD) global outage on July 19th, 2024 brought the stock’s 18-month-long bull rally to a screeching halt. After crashing 44% over the subsequent couple of weeks, the stock resumed its upward trajectory and is almost back at the same level as before the outage.
At the turn of the new year, the US government released a report on how the Department of Treasury was hacked, exposing critical documents and workstations to the hackers. Cyber attacks like these are becoming increasingly common in the US. Cybersecurity Ventures, a magazine that covers global cybersecurity issues, estimates the cost of cyber-attacks globally at $10.5 trillion. There is an increasing realization now that with Software forming a core part of national defense, cybersecurity needs to be given priority at the government level.
This improved prospect of government backing makes cybersecurity stocks an interesting play in 2025. Crowdstrike Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWD) is a major player in the sector and grew its cloud security business by 80% in 2024, despite its fair share of issues.
RBC Capital recently increased its target price on the stock from $365 to $420. This was preceded by Goldman Sachs raising its target from $372 to $415. The analysts are bullish on the stock and so are we.
Overall, CRWD ranks 8th on our list of hottest mega-cap stocks of 2025. While we acknowledge the potential of CRWD as a leading AI investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is as promising as CRWD but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.