Weaver Capital Management LLC Makes New Investment in Palo Alto Networks, Inc. $PANW

Weaver Capital Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Palo Alto Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:PANW) in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm acquired 1,729 shares of the network technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $687,000.

Several other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in PANW. BlackRock Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Palo Alto Networks during the second quarter worth about $25,833,462,000. Legal & General Group Plc acquired a new position in shares of Palo Alto Networks in the second quarter valued at approximately $1,968,304,000. Bank of New York Mellon Corp purchased a new position in shares of Palo Alto Networks during the second quarter valued at approximately $1,569,755,000. Deutsche Bank AG purchased a new position in shares of Palo Alto Networks during the second quarter valued at approximately $1,481,236,000. Finally, Bank of America Corp DE lifted its stake in shares of Palo Alto Networks by 16.0% during the first quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 22,476,753 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $3,603,473,000 after buying an additional 3,101,267 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 79.82% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Palo Alto Networks news, Director John P. Key sold 2,500 shares of Palo Alto Networks stock in a transaction on Monday, September 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $376.03, for a total value of $940,075.00. Following the transaction, the director owned 10,000 shares in the company, valued at $3,760,300. This trade represents a 20.00% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CAO Josh Paul sold 900 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $373.68, for a total transaction of $336,312.00. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer directly owned 72,484 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $27,085,821.12. This represents a 1.23% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold 54,210 shares of company stock worth $20,823,029 over the last 90 days. Company insiders own 1.40% of the company’s stock.

Palo Alto Networks Trading Down 1.3%

Shares of PANW stock opened at $370.27 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $302.88 billion, a P/E ratio of 726.03, a PEG ratio of 10.79 and a beta of 0.93. Palo Alto Networks, Inc. has a 1-year low of $139.57 and a 1-year high of $432.33. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.06, a current ratio of 0.87 and a quick ratio of 0.87. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $373.10 and its 200-day simple moving average is $300.73.

Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ:PANW) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, September 1st. The network technology company reported $1.02 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.98 by $0.04. Palo Alto Networks had a net margin of 2.67% and a return on equity of 8.50%. The firm had revenue of $3.41 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.35 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.95 earnings per share. Palo Alto Networks’s revenue was up 34.5% compared to the same quarter last year. Palo Alto Networks has set its FY 2027 guidance at 4.160-4.190 EPS and its Q1 2027 guidance at 0.960-0.980 EPS. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Palo Alto Networks, Inc. will post 2.31 EPS for the current year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

PANW has been the topic of a number of analyst reports. Jefferies Financial Group restated a “buy” rating and set a $450.00 target price (up from $335.00) on shares of Palo Alto Networks in a research report on Friday, August 28th. FBN Securities reiterated an “outperform” rating on shares of Palo Alto Networks in a report on Wednesday, July 1st. Stephens set a $400.00 price target on Palo Alto Networks and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 2nd. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reissued a “buy” rating and set a $430.00 price target (up from $350.00) on shares of Palo Alto Networks in a research note on Wednesday, September 2nd. Finally, Scotiabank cut Palo Alto Networks from a “sector outperform” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Wednesday, September 2nd. Thirty-nine equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and eleven have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $393.02.

Palo Alto Networks Company Profile

Palo Alto Networks, Inc is a cybersecurity company that provides solutions designed to help organizations protect networks, endpoints, cloud environments, applications and users from cyber threats. Its offerings include next-generation firewalls, cloud-delivered security services, secure access service edge (SASE) solutions, endpoint protection and security operations tools.

The company also provides platforms and services for cloud security, threat intelligence, incident response, vulnerability management and the automation of security operations.