CrowdStrike Market Loss Amounts to $16 Billion after Global IT Outage

Shares of the U.S. company CrowdStrike fell by 21% in early trading on Friday morning, meaning that about a quarter of its market value evaporated within a few minutes of the start of trading.

The sharp decline in CrowdStrike shares came in the wake of the technical glitch that struck the world on Friday morning and caused a series of technical problems that led to the suspension of the services of some airlines, banks, stock exchanges and television channels.

This defect was found to be the result of an update carried out by the CrowdStrike platform, which led to a crash in the Windows operating system owned by Microsoft.

The market loss amounts to approximately $16 billion in CrowdStrike's valuation after the company was involved in a massive IT outage that struck companies and airports around the world.

Microsoft shares also fell, as did shares of travel and entertainment companies, as investors assessed the potential disruption for vacationers.

CrowdStrike CEO: “We apologize for what happened and are now working to restore the systems.”