CrowdStrike, Fortinet and others surge on IBM warning of customer spending shift

CrowdStrike, Fortinet and others surge on IBM warning of customer spending shift Ines Ferré · Senior Business Reporter Tue, July 14, 2026 at 6:55 PM GMT+2 1 min read BUG CRWD FTNT PANW IBM What happened: CrowdStrike ( CRWD ) stock surged more than 9% on Tuesday alongside other cybersecurity names. The Global X Cybersecurity ETF ( BUG ) jumped more than 6%. Fortinet ( FTNT ), Okta ( OKTA ), and Palo Alto Networks ( PANW ) also jumped during the session.

What's behind the move: IBM ( IBM ) warned earlier in the day that its enterprise customers had shifted spending away from traditional software in the most recent quarter. "In the last few weeks of June, we saw clients shift their quarterly capex spend toward servers, storage, and memory purchases to secure supply-constrained infrastructure ahead of expected price increases," IBM CEO Arvind Krishna said . He added that "rapidly-evolving, industry-wide cybersecurity concerns" also drew customer focus in the quarter.

Investors viewed the comments as a sign that businesses were not cutting back on cybersecurity despite their spending on AI. What else you need to know: While companies may be reducing spending in some areas, other "must-have" expenses appear to be a priority, benefiting pure-play cybersecurity firms like CrowdStrike. The stock is up more than 90% year-to-date.

Despite concerns earlier this year that AI would disrupt traditional business models, cybersecurity companies have instead benefited from the rise of agentic AI, which is driving increased demand for verification and authentication. Ines Ferre is a Senior Business Reporter for Yahoo Finance covering the US stock market, publicly traded companies, and commodities.