Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ:PANW) Upgraded at Citigroup

Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ:PANW) was upgraded by Citigroup from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a note issued to investors on Thursday, Zacks reports.

Several other brokerages have also recently issued reports on PANW. Capital One Financial raised their price objective on Palo Alto Networks from $421.00 to $428.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 2nd. Tigress Financial upped their target price on Palo Alto Networks from $245.00 to $430.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 15th. Roth Capital reiterated a “neutral” rating and issued a $300.00 price target (up from $210.00) on shares of Palo Alto Networks in a report on Wednesday, September 2nd. Stifel Nicolaus set a $415.00 price objective on shares of Palo Alto Networks and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 19th. Finally, Robert W. Baird set a $420.00 price objective on shares of Palo Alto Networks and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, September 2nd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-eight have assigned a Buy rating and eleven have issued a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $393.02.

Palo Alto Networks Stock Performance

Shares of PANW stock opened at $370.27 on Thursday. The firm has a market capitalization of $302.88 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 726.03, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 10.79 and a beta of 0.93. 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 business has a fifty day moving average of $373.10 and a 200 day moving average of $300.73. Palo Alto Networks has a 1 year low of $139.57 and a 1 year high of $432.33.

Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ:PANW) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, September 1st. The network technology company reported $1.02 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.98 by $0.04. The company had revenue of $3.41 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.35 billion. Palo Alto Networks had a return on equity of 8.50% and a net margin of 2.67%. The firm’s revenue was up 34.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.95 EPS. 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, research analysts expect that Palo Alto Networks will post 2.31 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity

In other news, Director James Goetz sold 20,000 shares of Palo Alto Networks stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, September 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $376.68, for a total transaction of $7,533,600.00. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, Director Aparna Bawa sold 1,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, September 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $373.61, for a total transaction of $373,610.00. Following the sale, the director directly owned 5,437 shares in the company, valued at $2,031,317.57. This trade represents a 15.54% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 54,210 shares of company stock worth $20,823,029. 1.40% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Palo Alto Networks

Hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. BlackRock Inc. acquired a new position in Palo Alto Networks in the 2nd quarter worth about $25,833,462,000. Legal & General Group Plc acquired a new position in shares of Palo Alto Networks during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $1,968,304,000. Bank of New York Mellon Corp purchased a new stake in Palo Alto Networks in the 2nd quarter worth $1,569,755,000. Deutsche Bank AG purchased a new stake in shares of Palo Alto Networks during the second quarter worth about $1,481,236,000. Finally, Bank of America Corp DE boosted its holdings in Palo Alto Networks by 16.0% in the 1st quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 22,476,753 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $3,603,473,000 after buying an additional 3,101,267 shares during the last quarter. 79.82% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About Palo Alto Networks

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.