ZM in one paragraph
ZM is Zoom Communications on the NASDAQ. FY2025 revenue landed at roughly $4.67 billion, growing about 3% year-on-year, a long way from the pandemic-era 326% growth in FY2021. About 62% of revenue comes from Enterprise customers and the remaining 38% is Online, with roughly 4,088 customers running above $100,000 of annual run-rate. The balance sheet holds around $7.8 billion in cash and short-term investments with negligible debt, and a $1.5 billion buyback authorisation is funding the capital-return story. No dividend has ever been paid. At LHFX you trade ZM as a CFD on MetaTrader 5 with leverage capped at 1:20, a flat $3 per side commission, STP/ECN routing, and settlement in USD.
What Zoom Communications actually sells
Most people still mentally file Zoom under the single product that made it famous: a browser-based video meeting that worked when the alternatives did not. That product is now one feature inside a much larger bundle. The corporate name change in October 2024, dropping 'Video' from Zoom Video Communications, was the company's own way of telling Wall Street it no longer wants to be valued as a one-trick conferencing vendor.
Under the hood, Zoom now sells four broad product lines. Zoom Meetings is the legacy video service. Zoom Phone is a cloud telephony platform that replaces a traditional PBX. Zoom Contact Center is a customer-service product competing with Five9, NICE and Genesys. Zoom Workplace is the rebranded combined suite the sales team pitches as a single seat licence. AI Companion, the generative-AI layer, is bundled at no extra cost into paid plans, which is unusual in enterprise software and is a deliberate competitive lever against Microsoft Copilot pricing.
Headquartered in San Jose and founded in 2011 by Eric Yuan, Zoom counts most of its largest customers in financial services, education, healthcare and government. Its fiscal year ends on 31 January, so the calendar year you read about in the press lags Zoom's internal numbering by one. FY2025 closed on 31 January 2025, and the FY2026 print cycle will run through the end of January 2026.
Why the segment math matters. Zoom reports two customer segments rather than product lines. Enterprise net revenue retention has slid from over 130% during the pandemic to around 98%, meaning the existing book is no longer self-expanding. Growth from this segment now comes mostly from new logos and from cross-selling Zoom Phone and Contact Center into existing video accounts. That mechanical shift is why every analyst note opens with enterprise customer count above $100,000 of annual run-rate rather than headline revenue.
The Zoom revenue map
Zoom reports two customer segments rather than product lines, but the product mix inside Enterprise is increasingly the thing analysts model. The shares listed here are approximate FY2025 averages and shift quarter to quarter. The margin column is the analytical lens that matters when you are sizing a position around an earnings print.
| Segment | What ships in this line | Revenue share | Margin profile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enterprise | Multi-year contracts to companies with formal procurement, dedicated account managers, multi-product seat licences across Meetings, Phone, Contact Center and Workplace | ~62% | Above 75% gross, lifted by Phone and Contact Center attach |
| Online | Self-service credit-card plans bought by individuals, freelancers and small businesses with no sales-team involvement | ~38% | Above 75% gross but shrinking fastest, exposed to free competitor tiers |
| Zoom Phone (inside Enterprise) | Cloud telephony seats that replace a traditional PBX, sold as an add-on to existing video customers | Mid-teens of Enterprise | Software margin, scales with seat count |
| Contact Center (inside Enterprise) | Customer-service platform with AI Companion routing, competing against Five9, NICE and Genesys | Low single digits, fastest growth line | Early-stage, gross margin scaling with deployment |
| Zoom Workplace (bundle) | Combined seat licence stitching Meetings, Phone, AI Companion, Whiteboard, Mail and Calendar into one product | Reported inside Enterprise, no standalone disclosure | Software margin, supports the bundle-vs-Teams pitch |
Trading ZM means taking a view on whether the Phone and Contact Center attach rate inside Enterprise can outrun the Online segment's drag and the Microsoft Teams bundling threat. The market has already priced low single-digit total growth, so it pays for evidence the multi-product platform pitch is landing and punishes any datapoint that suggests it is not.
Four prints a year, all after the bell
Zoom operates on a fiscal year that closes on 31 January, so the calendar of quarterly releases sits a quarter offset from most large-cap peers. Q4 and the full-year print lands in late February. Q1 reports in late May, Q2 in late August, and Q3 in late November. Every release lands after the regular session closes on NASDAQ, with the press release at 16:00 New York time and the conference call at 17:00. The next morning's US cash session open at 14:30 UTC is when the gap reprices for LHFX CFD traders.
The buy-side reads the print in a fixed order. First, the year-over-year change in customers above $100,000 of annual run-rate, currently around 4,088 accounts. Second, the net revenue retention figure compared to the prior quarter; a single point of slippage here can drive a 5% reaction. Third, full-year revenue guidance, where even a $30 million adjustment on a $4.67 billion base is enough to move the share. Fourth, the Zoom Phone seat number, which the company sometimes references in the prepared remarks rather than the press release. Fifth, the buyback pacing, which appears in the cash-flow disclosure.
Single-session reactions are larger than the consensus framework typically predicts. Implied moves based on options have averaged 7% to 9% over recent quarters and realised moves have sometimes exceeded that. The post-earnings drift typically fades within two to three sessions. If you miss the gap, the second move is often a fade of the first move once the broader software cohort has digested the print.
Worked example, sizing into a print
Account balance $2,500. ZM trading at $75. Target a 1.5% portfolio loss budget if the stock gaps 9% against your direction, which is the median implied earnings move. Working backwards: the loss budget is $37.50 of risk. A 9% adverse move on ZM at $75 is $6.75 per share. That allows 5.55 shares of exposure, round down to 5 shares. The position notional is $375, the margin at 1:20 cap is $18.75, and the realised loss on a 9% adverse gap is roughly $34 after the $6 round-trip commission. Size against the dollar amount of the move you can afford, never against the leverage cap.
What moves ZM day to day
ZM sits in the slow-growth quality-software cohort. Most days the stock moves on broad index flow and one or two of the inputs below. Earnings windows pull all of them onto the same screen.
Quarterly earnings cadence
Zoom reports four times a year, after the close, in late February, late May, late August and late November. The first tradable reaction is the next session's open. Implied moves are typically in the 6% to 12% range, and realised moves have sometimes exceeded the implied. The enterprise customer count above $100,000 of run-rate and the net revenue retention number are the two lines the buy-side dissects first.
Microsoft and Google bundling commentary
Anything from Microsoft about Teams adoption, or from Google about Workspace seats, can move ZM the same day. Microsoft Teams is included with most Microsoft 365 enterprise licences at no incremental seat cost, and Google Meet is bundled into Workspace. Investors treat bundle penetration as the leading indicator of Zoom's churn risk, so a Microsoft datapoint can reprice ZM independently of any Zoom-specific news.
AI feature launches across the sector
When Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini or a startup ships a new collaboration AI feature, ZM often trades on the assumption that AI Companion has either kept pace or fallen behind. The reaction is asymmetric: missing parity hurts more than matching helps. Zoom's decision to bundle AI Companion at no extra cost rather than charge per seat like Copilot is a deliberate competitive lever that the market is still pricing.
Buyback pace
Repurchase volume disclosed each quarter under the $1.5 billion authorisation is closely watched given the $7.8 billion cash pile sitting against a market cap not far above $20 billion. Faster pacing supports the floor under the share. Slower pacing reads as management seeing better uses for cash, which the market does not usually reward for a slow-growth software name.
Macro positioning of software
ZM sits in the slow-growth quality-software cohort alongside names like Adobe, Salesforce and Workday. When long-duration rates fall, the cohort tends to bid. When rates back up, it sells off together. ZM also trades inside this cohort during risk-off sessions even when there is no Zoom-specific news, which means broad software ETF flows can move the share by 2% to 3% on a quiet day.
When ZM trades
ZM is listed on NASDAQ and follows the standard US cash-equity timetable. Pre-market, regular session, and post-market each carry distinct liquidity and price-discovery characteristics, but only one of the three is available as an LHFX CFD. That asymmetry matters because every quarterly earnings reaction lands in the post-market window.
Pre-market on cash equity
4:00 AM to 9:30 AM ET. The window where European broker upgrades, competitor headlines and product rumours print and reprice the stock. Spreads are wide and depth is thin. Not available as an LHFX CFD, so any pre-market move appears at the next regular-session open rather than as a tradable window.
Regular session
9:30 AM to 4:00 PM ET, Monday through Friday. The full-liquidity window with tight spreads, deep order books and the cleanest order routing. Typical intraday range on ZM runs 1.5% to 2.5% on a normal day, widening to 7% to 12% on earnings-reaction days and 3% to 5% on major software-cohort moves or Microsoft Teams headlines.
After-hours on cash equity
4:00 PM to 8:00 PM ET. Where all four quarterly earnings reports land. The initial twenty minutes after the press release are the cleanest read on the print, with aggressive repricing on thin liquidity. Not available as an LHFX CFD, so the after-hours move shows up at the next morning open at whatever the cash-equity book has already priced.
ZM CFD hours at LHFX
Regular NASDAQ session only: 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM ET, Monday through Friday. In UTC that is 14:30 to 21:00 during US winter and 13:30 to 20:00 during US summer. The opening 30 minutes and the closing 30 minutes carry the most volume. The 17:30 to 19:00 UTC stretch tends to be the quietest part of the session. Pre-market and after-hours are not available.
Carrying a ZM CFD position over an earnings print means accepting the full overnight gap with no opportunity to flatten in real time. Stop losses cannot fill across a closed market. Either size to the gap, or close the position before the bell.
ZM CFD vs registered share vs single-name option
You can take a directional view on Zoom three principal ways: a ZM CFD at LHFX, direct cash-equity ownership through a brokerage, or a listed single-name option. Each route exposes you to a different mix of access, leverage, income and friction.
| Product | What you own | Income treatment | Leverage available | Cost structure |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ZM CFD at LHFX | A contract on the price move, no underlying share, no voting rights | No current dividend; if reinstated, a cash adjustment on ex-date (long credit, short debit) mirrors the dividend | Up to 1:20 | Raw spread plus $3 per side commission, overnight swap on held positions |
| Registered ZM share | Direct ownership on the shareholder register with voting rights and T+1 settlement | Zero, Zoom has never paid a dividend and the board prefers buybacks | Reg T margin in a margin account, none in a cash account | Broker commission and bid-ask, no swap; shorting requires a stock borrow with a locate fee |
| ZM single-name option | A derivative contract on 100 underlying shares with a defined expiry | No dividend pass-through, no interest credit | Implicit, position-dependent on strike and expiry | Premium paid up front plus exchange fees, capped loss on long premium, exposed to theta decay |
Pick the CFD for short-dated directional trades around earnings, Microsoft Teams headlines, or buyback-cadence windows where leverage and the ability to short without a locate matter. Pick the registered share for multi-year ownership at a cash broker. Pick a single-name option if you want a defined-risk way to hold through an earnings print without accepting the full leveraged gap.
Trading ZM at LHFX
LHFX offers ZM as a Contract for Difference inside MetaTrader 5 with STP/ECN routing and no dealing-desk intervention. Specifications are visible inside MT5 by right-clicking ZM in Market Watch and opening Specification. Account base currency is converted at the prevailing rate; ZM itself settles in USD.
Up to 1:20 on ZM CFDs. The cap is set deliberately tight for single-name US equities because earnings gaps can swallow several percent of margin in a single morning open. Most experienced traders run effective leverage well below the cap, often 1:5 or lower for earnings-window positions on a name with 7% to 9% implied moves.
$3 per side, $6 round-trip per standard lot. Quoted as a flat fee on top of the raw spread rather than embedded inside it, so the published bid and ask reflect the underlying market quote. At a $75 share price the round-trip $6 is a meaningful fraction of any move under a dollar.
MetaTrader 5 on Windows, Mac, web, iOS and Android, alongside the LHFX Trade web client. LHFX is a direct MetaQuotes licensee, so ZM appears in the same Market Watch as forex pairs, indices, commodities and crypto CFDs without any separate platform installation.
STP/ECN routing. Orders are passed straight through to aggregated US equity liquidity rather than internalised against a dealing desk. Selling first is a single click with no separate stock-borrow conversation, which is the operational reason short trades around an earnings print are cleaner on the CFD than on the cash share.
Regular NASDAQ session only: 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM ET Monday through Friday. Pre-market and after-hours moves on the cash-equity book are reflected when the CFD reopens at the next regular-session start. Early closes on the day before Independence Day, Black Friday and 24 December follow the NASDAQ calendar.
Variable raw spread, tightest mid-session. Spreads widen on the open, the close, and around scheduled releases such as the four quarterly prints or US macro events that move the broader software cohort. The 17:30 to 19:00 UTC mid-session stretch is the quietest part of the day.
All ZM CFD P&L is settled in US dollars on the trading account. If your base currency is EUR, GBP, or another supported wallet, the result is converted at the prevailing rate at close-out. Minimum deposit to fund a live account is $10, with card and crypto rails clearing in around 20 minutes and bank wire in 1 to 3 business days.
A worked sizing example
Account balance $2,500. ZM at $75. You want to short 6 shares to express a view that the next earnings print will disappoint on enterprise customer additions. At 1:20 leverage the margin requirement is 6 multiplied by $75 divided by 20, which equals $22.50. Round-trip cost is $6 in commission plus the raw spread on entry and exit. If ZM falls 10% to $67.50, the gross profit is 6 multiplied by $7.50, or $45, netting roughly $39 after commission, a return of about 1.6% on the $2,500 account. Reverse the move: if ZM rises 10% to $82.50, the loss is roughly $51, around 2.0% of the account. The same trade sized at 30 shares would put 8% to 10% of the account at risk on a single earnings gap. Pick the share count first, the margin number will follow.
For live spread snapshots, contract size, swap, and dividend treatment, see the ZM instrument page. For the full commission breakdown across instrument groups, see spreads and fees, and for the leverage policy by asset class see leverage.
Risks of trading ZM
On top of normal equity-CFD risk, ZM carries a few structural exposures that have produced several of its largest single-session moves in the last few years. Treat them as standing inputs to position sizing rather than as tail events to ignore.
Free-bundled rivals
Microsoft Teams is included with most Microsoft 365 enterprise licences at no incremental seat cost. Google Meet is bundled into Workspace. Selling a discrete video product against a free bundle is a permanent structural headwind, and any acceleration of switching reads through to ZM's churn rate and the net revenue retention figure that anchors the multiple.
Stalled growth and multiple risk
Software stocks growing in the low single digits typically trade in low single-digit EV/sales multiples. ZM was already re-rated from peak-2020 levels and now sits near 3x forward EV/sales. Further compression toward 2x is mathematically possible if growth stalls or turns negative, which would mean another 30% to 40% downside on a multiple basis alone.
Cash-deployment surprise
With $7.8 billion of cash on a market cap not far above $20 billion, a large acquisition would change the investment case overnight. Markets typically punish defensive acquirers, especially in slow-growth software where the cleanest case for cash is buybacks. The option of misallocated cash is non-trivial and the announcement risk is binary.
Earnings-window overnight gap risk
All four quarterly prints land after the regular-session close on NASDAQ. LHFX CFDs do not trade after-hours. A position held over the print is exposed to the full overnight reaction with no opportunity to flatten until the next morning open. ZM has gapped 6% to 12% on multiple recent prints when net revenue retention or guidance surprised.
Overnight financing on long holds
Long-bias CFD positions held for weeks accumulate swap costs that, on a slow-grinding mover like ZM, can erode most of the directional edge. The swap is charged daily on the full notional, not the margin posted, and the rate is published inside MT5 under the symbol specification panel. Check the rate before holding longer than a few sessions.
Risk disclosure: CFDs are complex instruments and carry a high risk of losing money rapidly because of leverage. The majority of retail accounts lose money trading CFDs. Make sure you understand how CFDs work and that you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money. Never trade with capital you cannot afford to lose.