Two of the three best-performing security-software stocks of the past month have not published a financial statement since spring. Rubrik, which sells backup, cyber-recovery and threat analytics for corporate data estates, last reported in early June. Zscaler, which routes enterprise internet traffic through its own cloud instead of through office firewalls, last reported in May — and when it did, it guided next year's annual recurring revenue to grow only 16–17%, and the shares fell about a third in a session.

Both are now among the most-bid names in the group.

A month made in three sessions

Across the 30 days to 14 August, the seven names — CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, Zscaler, Okta, Cloudflare and Rubrik — gained an average of 10.7%, with five of seven positive. Rubrik led at 27.2% and Zscaler followed at 23.9%. Remove those two and the average falls to 4.8%.

No member gained more than 10.4% in any single session. The month was instead built out of three broad up-days. On 4 August six of the seven rose between 4.3% and 8.4% as the Nasdaq Composite gained 2.59% in a rotation back into software. On 11 and 13 August they rose again, after the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas, where BTIG reported that the most consistent theme in its meetings was that AI agents have "fundamentally changed the threat landscape" while deployment of AI security tools remains early. Rubrik also drew a product headline: the Cloud Security Alliance named it a founding member of its AI-security leadership group.

The run-up to the window is the tell. On 14 July, security shares rallied on cooler June inflation data — CrowdStrike up 11%, Palo Alto 7% — the same day IBM chief executive Arvind Krishna warned that clients would pause new security purchases until they knew what securing artificial intelligence would cost.

The price of a dollar of gross profit moved; the dollar did not

Because several of these companies lose money under standard accounting, the usable comparison is what buyers pay per dollar of gross profit. Against this desk's own 29 July reading, Rubrik went from 12.8x trailing gross profit to 18.3x — a 43% re-rating in sixteen days, with nothing filed in between. Zscaler went from 10.1x to 12.2x. CrowdStrike's price-to-sales rose about a fifth on the same silence.

What the businesses actually did is uneven. Fortinet, which builds FortiGate firewall appliances and runs its own operating system and custom chips, grew June-quarter revenue 25.6% to $2.05bn, a fourth straight acceleration. Its reported operating margin widened 5.7 points to 33.7%, billings rose 33%, and free cash flow more than tripled to $966m. Cloudflare, which operates a global edge network selling content delivery, denial-of-service protection and zero-trust access, grew 35.9% to $696.1m with net revenue retention at 120% and remaining contracted revenue up 38% — though its operating margin worsened on $99m of severance, with full-year restructuring charges now guided to $165m. CrowdStrike, whose Falcon platform sells endpoint and identity protection by subscription, grew 25.6% to $1.39bn and improved its operating margin by 9.1 points; it split its shares four-for-one on 29 June, and adjusted for that is up roughly 103% over twelve months.

Against those three, the rest are harder. Palo Alto's headline 31.1% growth is mostly the roughly $25bn purchase of identity vendor CyberArk, closed in February: gross margin fell 5.3 points, operating income swung to a -$183m loss, and the share count rose from 713m to 744m. Rubrik is the fastest grower at 39%, but that is down from 51.2% three quarters ago. Okta, which sells single sign-on and multi-factor authentication, has decelerated four quarters running to 11.2% — and is up 78% in three months. Zscaler grew gross profit 26% last quarter, matching CrowdStrike, yet sell-side targets have been cut at UBS, Wedbush and RBC.

The gap that has not closed

Price per dollar of trailing gross profit across the seven spans nearly six-fold: Okta 10.6x, Zscaler 12.2x, Rubrik 18.3x, Fortinet 19.4x, Palo Alto 41.0x, CrowdStrike 57.8x, Cloudflare 61.4x. On forward gross profit the ordering barely shifts, meaning consensus expects the cheap names to stay cheap rather than converge. In Okta's case that looks justified — analysts model 10% revenue growth in fiscal 2028.

Five of the seven have traded with their 50-day average above their 200-day since May or June; Zscaler only crossed on 13 August. The single name whose multiple fell while its numbers rose is Fortinet: its trailing price/earnings ratio compressed from about 59x to 55.9x through the best quarter in the group, and it was the second-worst performer of the month.

The setup

Where it stands — The month's biggest gainers re-rated on conference narrative and rate-cut pricing, not on results they have yet to publish. Would confirm — Rubrik's next quarter holding revenue growth at or above 39% rather than extending its slide from 51%. Would invalidate — Zscaler confirming 16–17% ARR growth for fiscal 2027 at its 8 September report. Watch next — CrowdStrike and Okta report 26 August, Palo Alto 1 September, Zscaler 8 September. Valuation — Cohort spans 10.6x to 61.4x trailing gross profit; Fortinet sits at 19.4x trailing, 18.1x forward.