Brokerages Set Palo Alto Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:PANW) PT at $214.64

Palo Alto Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:PANW) has been given a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” by the forty-four brokerages that are covering the firm, MarketBeat reports. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twelve have issued a hold rating and thirty have assigned a buy rating to the company. The average 12-month price objective among brokers that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $214.6439.

A number of brokerages recently commented on PANW. Weiss Ratings restated a “hold (c+)” rating on shares of Palo Alto Networks in a research note on Saturday, September 27th. Piper Sandler upgraded shares of Palo Alto Networks from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and increased their price objective for the company from $200.00 to $225.00 in a research note on Tuesday, August 12th. Cantor Fitzgerald reiterated an “overweight” rating and set a $223.00 target price on shares of Palo Alto Networks in a research report on Friday, August 15th. Stephens reissued an “equal weight” rating and issued a $205.00 price target on shares of Palo Alto Networks in a research report on Tuesday, August 19th. Finally, KeyCorp cut Palo Alto Networks from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a report on Thursday, July 31st.

Insider Transactions at Palo Alto Networks

In other Palo Alto Networks news, CEO Nikesh Arora sold 846,408 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $204.06, for a total value of $172,718,016.48. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 275,013 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $56,119,152.78. The trade was a 75.48% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, EVP Nir Zuk sold 100,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, August 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $172.80, for a total transaction of $17,280,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 3,143,516 shares in the company, valued at $543,199,564.80. This represents a 3.08% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 1,315,130 shares of company stock valued at $259,351,606. 2.50% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Palo Alto Networks

Hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Darwin Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Palo Alto Networks during the second quarter worth approximately $25,000. Whipplewood Advisors LLC boosted its stake in Palo Alto Networks by 6,400.0% in the second quarter. Whipplewood Advisors LLC now owns 130 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $27,000 after buying an additional 128 shares in the last quarter. Briaud Financial Planning Inc acquired a new position in Palo Alto Networks during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $28,000. Howard Hughes Medical Institute acquired a new position in shares of Palo Alto Networks during the second quarter worth $29,000. Finally, HWG Holdings LP bought a new position in shares of Palo Alto Networks in the 1st quarter valued at $31,000. 79.82% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Palo Alto Networks Stock Performance

Shares of PANW opened at $207.19 on Friday. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $190.20 and a 200-day simple moving average of $188.20. Palo Alto Networks has a 52 week low of $144.15 and a 52 week high of $212.10. The firm has a market capitalization of $138.59 billion, a P/E ratio of 129.09, a P/E/G ratio of 4.98 and a beta of 0.98.

Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ:PANW) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Monday, August 18th. The network technology company reported $0.95 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.89 by $0.06. The firm had revenue of $2.54 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.50 billion. Palo Alto Networks had a return on equity of 17.66% and a net margin of 12.30%.The company’s quarterly revenue was up 15.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.75 earnings per share. Palo Alto Networks has set its FY 2026 guidance at 3.750-3.850 EPS. Q1 2026 guidance at 0.880-0.900 EPS. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Palo Alto Networks will post 1.76 earnings per share for the current year.

About Palo Alto Networks

Palo Alto Networks, Inc provides cybersecurity solutions worldwide. The company offers firewall appliances and software; and Panorama, a security management solution for the global control of network security platform as a virtual or a physical appliance. It also provides subscription services covering the areas of threat prevention, malware and persistent threat, URL filtering, laptop and mobile device protection, DNS security, Internet of Things security, SaaS security API, and SaaS security inline, as well as threat intelligence, and data loss prevention.