3 Reasons J is Risky and 1 Stock to Buy Instead

Over the last six months, Jacobs Solutions shares have sunk to $117.99, producing a disappointing 16.5% loss - worse than the S&P 500's 8.3% drop. This was partly driven by its softer quarterly results and may have investors wondering how to approach the situation.
Is now the time to buy Jacobs Solutions, or should you be careful about including it in your portfolio? Get the full breakdown from our expert analysts, it's free.
Despite the more favorable entry price, we're sitting this one out for now. Here are three reasons why you should be careful with J and a stock we'd rather own.
With a workforce of approximately 45,000 professionals tackling complex challenges from water scarcity to cybersecurity, Jacobs Solutions (NYSE:J) provides engineering, consulting, and technical services focused on infrastructure, sustainability, and advanced technology solutions.
In addition to reported revenue, backlog is a useful data point for analyzing Government & Technical Consulting companies. This metric shows the value of outstanding orders that have not yet been executed or delivered, giving visibility into Jacobs Solutions's future revenue streams.
Jacobs Solutions's backlog came in at $21.85 billion in the latest quarter, and it averaged 13.1% year-on-year declines over the last two years. This performance was underwhelming and shows the company is not winning new orders. It also suggests there may be increasing competition or market saturation.
Forecasted revenues by Wall Street analysts signal a company's potential. Predictions may not always be accurate, but accelerating growth typically boosts valuation multiples and stock prices while slowing growth does the opposite.
Over the next 12 months, sell-side analysts expect Jacobs Solutions's revenue to stall. Although this projection indicates its newer products and services will spur better top-line performance, it is still below the sector average.
We track the long-term change in earnings per share (EPS) because it highlights whether a company's growth is profitable.
Jacobs Solutions's EPS grew at an unimpressive 4% compounded annual growth rate over the last five years. On the bright side, this performance was better than its 2% annualized revenue declines and tells us management adapted its cost structure in response to a challenging demand environment.
Jacobs Solutions falls short of our quality standards. After the recent drawdown, the stock trades at 19.6× forward price-to-earnings (or $117.99 per share). This valuation tells us it's a bit of a market darling with a lot of good news priced in - you can find better investment opportunities elsewhere. We'd suggest looking at a safe-and-steady industrials business benefiting from an upgrade cycle.
Market indices reached historic highs following Donald Trump's presidential victory in November 2024, but the outlook for 2025 is clouded by new trade policies that could impact business confidence and growth.
While this has caused many investors to adopt a "fearful" wait-and-see approach, we're leaning into our best ideas that can grow regardless of the political or macroeconomic climate. Take advantage of Mr. Market by checking out our Top 5 Strong Momentum Stocks for this week. This is a curated list of our High Quality stocks that have generated a market-beating return of 175% over the last five years.
Stocks that made our list in 2019 include now familiar names such as Nvidia (+2,183% between December 2019 and December 2024) as well as under-the-radar businesses like Sterling Infrastructure (+1,096% five-year return). Find your next big winner with StockStory today for free.

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Better Cybersecurity Stock: CrowdStrike or SentinelOne?

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By protecting these devices, companies make it harder for cyberattackers to gain access to their internal networks, where they might steal sensitive information, delete files, interfere with systems, or even lock them down with ransomware to extort payments from their victims. While endpoint protection is how both companies land clients, each bolsters its offerings with an array of other cybersecurity products that clients can use to create a protection suite tailored to their unique situations. Since these two direct competitors offer highly similar product types, it's hard to declare either a winner on this front from an investor perspective. Winner: Tie. From a sheer size perspective, CrowdStrike is the clear winner. During its fiscal 2026 first quarter, which ended April 30, CrowdStrike's annual recurring revenue (ARR) rose to $4.4 billion. SentinelOne's ARR of $948 million in its fiscal Q1 was less than a quarter of that. While size doesn't always matter, in this case, it does. Because so many more companies use CrowdStrike's platform, it's more likely that any given IT professional will have at least one contact already on its client list. If CrowdStrike is doing a great job with those clients, word will spread, and it will likely receive more serious consideration in future cybersecurity bidding processes. This advantage cannot be understated. Indeed, it's one of the reasons why CrowdStrike's growth has remained strong despite its size. Winner: CrowdStrike In terms of growth rates, SentinelOne is slightly outperforming CrowdStrike in this category. However, this should be no surprise because SentinelOne is a much smaller company. In fiscal Q1, SentinelOne's ARR rose 24% year over year, while CrowdStrike's increased 22% year over year. While I will give the point to SentinelOne, it's important to understand that CrowdStrike is growing from a much larger base than SentinelOne, making this close call all the more impressive for CrowdStrike. Winner: SentinelOne Due to its smaller size and focus on top-line growth, SentinelOne is far from profitable, while CrowdStrike has achieved intermittent profitability (although it reverted to a negative operating margin and a loss in its most recent quarter). SentinelOne is far from breaking even, but CrowdStrike was in this same position about five years ago. There's no reason not to expect SentinelOne to follow a similar path to profitability, but it will take some time. Meanwhile, CrowdStrike should eventually turn a profit again, as it has proven that it can do that. Winner: CrowdStrike CrowdStrike is leading this battle of the stocks so far, but SentinelOne is about to change the narrative with one jaw-dropping metric. CrowdStrike is the most popular cybersecurity stock in the market, and as a result, it has been bid up to expensive levels. From a price-to-sales (P/S) standpoint (the best metric to use to compare these companies since CrowdStrike flips between profitable and unprofitable, while SentinelOne is years away from profits), CrowdStrike has gotten far more expensive than SentinelOne over the past few years. CrowdStrike stock is now five times more expensive than SentinelOne, which is hard to believe, considering they compete in the same industry and are growing at nearly identical rates. This leads me to believe that CrowdStrike's stock has been overly hyped up while SentinelOne has been forgotten. While I'm OK with valuing CrowdStrike at a premium due to its market leadership position, this is far too great a premium to pay. SentinelOne is a dirt-cheap stock, and CrowdStrike is almost too expensive to consider. While I have been a long-term CrowdStrike bull, I'd be a bit cautious about buying the stock at its current lofty valuation. As a result, I think SentinelOne is the better cybersecurity investment right now. Before you buy stock in CrowdStrike, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and CrowdStrike wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $664,089!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $881,731!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 994% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 172% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 9, 2025 Keithen Drury has positions in CrowdStrike. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends CrowdStrike. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Better Cybersecurity Stock: CrowdStrike or SentinelOne? was originally published by The Motley Fool Sign in to access your portfolio