FireEye Just Achieved This Key Milestone

As much as FireEye (FEYE) has for years been a force to reckon with in the cybersecurity vendor market, the one thing that had been lacking on its resume was that unlike rivals Cisco Systems (CSCO), Symantec (SYMC), and Palo Alto Networks (PANW), it had never turned a quarterly profit since going public back in 2013. Wall Street on average was expecting FireEye to post a loss per share of $0.01 in 4Q17. FireEye would have actually posted a GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) profit in 4Q17 had it not been for a one-off expense of $12.5 million that the company incurred toward legal settlement costs.