3,210 Shares in Palo Alto Networks, Inc. $PANW Acquired by Outfitters Financial LLC

Outfitters Financial LLC purchased a new stake in Palo Alto Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:PANW) in the third quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor purchased 3,210 shares of the network technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $654,000.

Other hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Palo Alto Networks in the 2nd quarter valued at $675,865,000. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC acquired a new stake in Palo Alto Networks during the 2nd quarter worth $633,068,000. ABN AMRO Bank N.V. purchased a new stake in Palo Alto Networks in the second quarter valued at $340,883,000. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in Palo Alto Networks by 2.0% in the second quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 64,016,374 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $13,100,311,000 after acquiring an additional 1,240,830 shares during the last quarter. Finally, California Public Employees Retirement System boosted its stake in Palo Alto Networks by 97.9% in the second quarter. California Public Employees Retirement System now owns 2,104,939 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $430,755,000 after acquiring an additional 1,041,145 shares in the last quarter. 79.82% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts have recently commented on PANW shares. Tigress Financial began coverage on Palo Alto Networks in a research report on Friday, September 26th. They set a “buy” rating and a $245.00 target price on the stock. BMO Capital Markets raised their price target on Palo Alto Networks from $225.00 to $230.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, November 17th. Wolfe Research lifted their price target on Palo Alto Networks from $225.00 to $250.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, December 15th. Royal Bank Of Canada increased their price objective on Palo Alto Networks from $232.00 to $250.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, November 12th. Finally, TD Cowen raised their target price on shares of Palo Alto Networks from $230.00 to $255.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 13th. Thirty-one investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, nine have assigned a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $227.06.

Palo Alto Networks Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ PANW opened at $185.86 on Wednesday. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $195.48 and a 200 day moving average price of $196.30. Palo Alto Networks, Inc. has a 1-year low of $144.15 and a 1-year high of $223.61. The company has a market cap of $129.54 billion, a PE ratio of 117.63, a P/E/G ratio of 4.34 and a beta of 0.76.

Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ:PANW) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 20th. The network technology company reported $0.93 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.89 by $0.04. Palo Alto Networks had a net margin of 11.69% and a return on equity of 17.05%. The company had revenue of $2.47 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.46 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $1.56 EPS. Palo Alto Networks’s revenue was up 15.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts anticipate that Palo Alto Networks, Inc. will post 1.76 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity

In other Palo Alto Networks news, CAO Josh D. Paul sold 800 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $184.81, for a total transaction of $147,848.00. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer owned 46,005 shares in the company, valued at approximately $8,502,184.05. The trade was a 1.71% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, EVP Lee Klarich sold 120,774 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $217.94, for a total value of $26,321,485.56. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 356,409 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $77,675,777.46. This represents a 25.31% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 261,248 shares of company stock valued at $53,316,149. Company insiders own 1.40% of the company’s stock.

About Palo Alto Networks

Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ: PANW) is a cybersecurity company founded in 2005 and headquartered in Santa Clara, California. The firm develops a broad suite of security products and services designed to prevent successful cyberattacks and protect enterprise networks, clouds, and endpoints. Built around a platform strategy, its offerings target threat prevention, detection, response and governance across hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

The company’s product portfolio includes next?generation firewalls as a core on?premises capability, alongside cloud?delivered security services and software for securing public and private clouds.