Palo Alto Networks, Inc. $PANW Shares Purchased by National Pension Service

National Pension Service increased its holdings in Palo Alto Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:PANW) by 19.1% in the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 1,686,962 shares of the network technology company’s stock after purchasing an additional 270,233 shares during the quarter. National Pension Service’s holdings in Palo Alto Networks were worth $345,220,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Brighton Jones LLC increased its position in shares of Palo Alto Networks by 147.7% during the 4th quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 6,761 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $1,230,000 after purchasing an additional 4,031 shares during the last quarter. Bison Wealth LLC boosted its stake in Palo Alto Networks by 169.1% during the fourth quarter. Bison Wealth LLC now owns 5,212 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $948,000 after buying an additional 3,275 shares during the period. Schechter Investment Advisors LLC boosted its stake in Palo Alto Networks by 22.3% during the first quarter. Schechter Investment Advisors LLC now owns 2,159 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $368,000 after buying an additional 393 shares during the period. CWM LLC increased its position in shares of Palo Alto Networks by 40.8% during the first quarter. CWM LLC now owns 59,910 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $10,223,000 after acquiring an additional 17,347 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Bleakley Financial Group LLC raised its stake in shares of Palo Alto Networks by 8.3% in the 1st quarter. Bleakley Financial Group LLC now owns 14,477 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $2,470,000 after acquiring an additional 1,107 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 79.82% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms recently weighed in on PANW. JMP Securities increased their price objective on shares of Palo Alto Networks from $212.00 to $250.00 and gave the stock a “market outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, October 27th. Royal Bank Of Canada restated an “outperform” rating and set a $232.00 price target on shares of Palo Alto Networks in a research report on Tuesday, August 19th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “hold (c+)” rating on shares of Palo Alto Networks in a research note on Wednesday, October 8th. BTIG Research upgraded Palo Alto Networks from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, October 13th. Finally, Stephens restated an “equal weight” rating and set a $205.00 target price on shares of Palo Alto Networks in a report on Tuesday, August 19th. Thirty equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, eleven have issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $218.67.

Palo Alto Networks Trading Up 0.8%

Shares of NASDAQ PANW opened at $218.27 on Wednesday. The stock has a market cap of $149.29 billion, a P/E ratio of 135.99, a PEG ratio of 5.15 and a beta of 0.95. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $208.24 and its 200-day simple moving average is $196.75. Palo Alto Networks, Inc. has a 12-month low of $144.15 and a 12-month high of $223.61.

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 for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.89 by $0.06. The company had revenue of $2.54 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.50 billion. Palo Alto Networks had a return on equity of 17.66% and a net margin of 12.30%.Palo Alto Networks’s revenue was up 15.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $0.75 EPS. Palo Alto Networks has set its FY 2026 guidance at 3.750-3.850 EPS. Q1 2026 guidance at 0.880-0.900 EPS. On average, equities analysts forecast that Palo Alto Networks, Inc. will post 1.76 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity

In other Palo Alto Networks news, EVP Dipak Golechha sold 5,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $204.19, for a total value of $1,020,950.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 96,135 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $19,629,805.65. This represents a 4.94% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Nikesh Arora sold 846,408 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $204.06, for a total transaction of $172,718,016.48. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 275,013 shares in the company, valued at $56,119,152.78. The trade was a 75.48% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold a total of 1,215,830 shares of company stock valued at $249,160,428 over the last three months. 2.50% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

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.