Westpark Capital Reiterates “Hold” Rating for Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ:PANW)

Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ:PANW)‘s stock had its “hold” rating reissued by Westpark Capital in a research note issued to investors on Thursday,Benzinga reports.

A number of other brokerages have also issued reports on PANW. Evercore ISI increased their target price on shares of Palo Alto Networks from $220.00 to $250.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 13th. Scotiabank raised their price objective on shares of Palo Alto Networks from $225.00 to $228.00 and gave the company a “sector outperform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 19th. DA Davidson upped their target price on Palo Alto Networks from $215.00 to $240.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday. Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $230.00 price target on shares of Palo Alto Networks in a research note on Thursday. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald boosted their price objective on Palo Alto Networks from $223.00 to $250.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday. Twenty-nine equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, eleven have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Palo Alto Networks has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $224.93.

Palo Alto Networks Trading Down 4.0%

NASDAQ:PANW traded down $8.04 during mid-day trading on Thursday, hitting $191.87. The stock had a trading volume of 5,184,686 shares, compared to its average volume of 6,130,823. The stock has a market capitalization of $131.23 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 120.09, a P/E/G ratio of 4.78 and a beta of 0.95. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $209.31 and a 200-day simple moving average of $197.43. Palo Alto Networks has a 52 week low of $144.15 and a 52 week high of $223.61.

Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ:PANW) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, November 19th. The network technology company reported $0.93 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.89 by $0.04. Palo Alto Networks had a return on equity of 17.66% and a net margin of 12.30%.The company had revenue of $2.47 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.46 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $1.56 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 15.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Palo Alto Networks has set its FY 2026 guidance at 3.800-3.900 EPS. Q2 2026 guidance at 0.930-0.950 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Palo Alto Networks will post 1.76 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Palo Alto Networks news, EVP Dipak Golechha sold 5,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $204.19, for a total transaction of $1,020,950.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president owned 96,135 shares in the company, valued at approximately $19,629,805.65. The trade was a 4.94% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Josh D. Paul sold 700 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $219.97, for a total transaction of $153,979.00. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer directly owned 47,505 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $10,449,674.85. This represents a 1.45% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 1,215,130 shares of company stock worth $249,031,488. Company insiders own 1.40% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Palo Alto Networks

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in Palo Alto Networks by 2.0% during the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 65,269,963 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $13,290,270,000 after acquiring an additional 1,253,589 shares during the period. State Street Corp lifted its position in shares of Palo Alto Networks by 1.7% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 29,736,916 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $6,055,031,000 after purchasing an additional 505,924 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Palo Alto Networks by 1.1% in the second quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 15,174,029 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $3,093,262,000 after purchasing an additional 169,055 shares in the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp boosted its holdings in shares of Palo Alto Networks by 0.5% during the third quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 7,528,248 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $1,532,902,000 after purchasing an additional 36,511 shares during the period. Finally, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. increased its stake in Palo Alto Networks by 41.9% in the 1st quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 7,235,406 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $1,234,650,000 after buying an additional 2,134,735 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 79.82% of the company’s stock.

Palo Alto Networks Company Profile

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.