Jim Cramer’s 19 Stock Q1 Recap: S&P 500 Winners vs. Nasdaq 100’s Worst Performers

14. Zscaler, Inc. (NASDAQ:ZS)

Zscaler, Inc. (NASDAQ:ZS) is among the stocks in focus as Jim Cramer reviewed the S&P 500’s top performers and the Nasdaq 100’s biggest laggards for the first quarter. Cramer highlighted his preferred cybersecurity bets over the stock, as he said:

The fifth-worst Nasdaq 100, wow… Zscaler, down almost 38% in the first quarter. Zscaler is a cybersecurity play, and Wall Street’s convinced that cybersecurity’s vulnerable to AI displacement as any other kind of enterprise software. Now, as you heard directly from CrowdStrike’s George Kurtz last week, Palo Alto’s Nikesh Arora last night, that’s actually dead wrong. And here I will draw the line. It’s dead wrong. Of course, if you want to bet on cybersecurity, I’d much rather own CrowdStrike or Palo Alto Networks than Zscaler. We own both for the Charitable Trust, but in fairness, Zscaler shouldn’t have been hit all that hard.

Zscaler, Inc. (NASDAQ:ZS) provides cloud-based security that protects users, applications, and data through its zero-trust platform and threat-defense tools. During the March 4 episode, a caller asked whether they should exit their position in the stock as they mentioned holding CrowdStrike, Rubrik, and Cloudflare. Cramer responded:

You got a tough one, because first of all, I like everything you have. But second, I would say Zscaler, I would not sell it here, but I would want to sell it if you’ve got all those other stocks. Get that bounce going. We’re starting to see some of these stocks really bounce, but do lighten up because you’re a little too in, you have too many of these kinds of stocks, and there’s too many days of pain. I don’t want you to have that much pain because you’ll end up leaving the game.