Bond & Devick Financial Network Inc. Buys 1,721 Shares of Palo Alto Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:PANW)

Bond & Devick Financial Network Inc. grew its stake in Palo Alto Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:PANW) by 96.5% in the 1st quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 3,504 shares of the network technology company’s stock after purchasing an additional 1,721 shares during the period. Bond & Devick Financial Network Inc.’s holdings in Palo Alto Networks were worth $598,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Uniting Wealth Partners LLC bought a new position in shares of Palo Alto Networks in the 4th quarter worth approximately $548,000. Rehmann Capital Advisory Group raised its holdings in Palo Alto Networks by 106.4% in the fourth quarter. Rehmann Capital Advisory Group now owns 2,378 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $433,000 after purchasing an additional 1,226 shares in the last quarter. Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. raised its holdings in Palo Alto Networks by 94.3% in the fourth quarter. Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. now owns 11,661 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $2,122,000 after purchasing an additional 5,658 shares in the last quarter. Knights of Columbus Asset Advisors LLC raised its holdings in Palo Alto Networks by 108.1% in the fourth quarter. Knights of Columbus Asset Advisors LLC now owns 21,354 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $3,886,000 after purchasing an additional 11,095 shares in the last quarter. Finally, National Pension Service raised its holdings in Palo Alto Networks by 82.1% in the fourth quarter. National Pension Service now owns 1,345,740 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $244,871,000 after purchasing an additional 606,778 shares in the last quarter. 79.82% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

PANW has been the subject of several research reports. Truist Financial decreased their price target on shares of Palo Alto Networks from $213.00 to $205.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, March 31st. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $225.00 target price on shares of Palo Alto Networks in a research note on Monday, February 10th. UBS Group raised their target price on shares of Palo Alto Networks from $190.00 to $200.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, February 14th. KeyCorp reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and set a $220.00 target price on shares of Palo Alto Networks in a research note on Wednesday, May 21st. Finally, Citigroup raised their price objective on Palo Alto Networks from $205.00 to $220.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 25th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, fourteen have assigned a hold rating and twenty-seven have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $208.00.

Insider Activity

In related news, EVP Nir Zuk sold 100,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, April 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $165.41, for a total transaction of $16,541,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 3,543,516 shares in the company, valued at approximately $586,132,981.56. The trade was a 2.74% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Nikesh Arora sold 227,414 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, April 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $172.73, for a total value of $39,281,220.22. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 317,571 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $54,854,038.83. This trade represents a 41.73% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 568,962 shares of company stock valued at $96,933,690 in the last 90 days. Company insiders own 2.50% of the company’s stock.

Palo Alto Networks Price Performance

Shares of PANW opened at $190.78 on Friday. The business has a fifty day moving average of $178.31 and a 200 day moving average of $184.96. The firm has a market capitalization of $127.21 billion, a P/E ratio of 107.48, a PEG ratio of 5.64 and a beta of 1.02. Palo Alto Networks, Inc. has a one year low of $142.01 and a one year high of $208.39.

Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ:PANW) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, May 20th. The network technology company reported $0.80 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.77 by $0.03. The business had revenue of $2.29 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.28 billion. Palo Alto Networks had a return on equity of 21.93% and a net margin of 14.64%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 15.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.66 EPS. Analysts expect that Palo Alto Networks, Inc. will post 1.76 EPS for the current fiscal 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.