Holocene Advisors LP Purchases New Position in Palo Alto Networks, Inc. $PANW

Holocene Advisors LP acquired a new position in Palo Alto Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:PANW) in the third quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund acquired 415,570 shares of the network technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $84,618,000. Holocene Advisors LP owned about 0.06% of Palo Alto Networks as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Darwin Wealth Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Palo Alto Networks in the 2nd quarter worth $25,000. Howard Hughes Medical Institute bought a new position in shares of Palo Alto Networks during the second quarter valued at $29,000. Winch Advisory Services LLC boosted its position in shares of Palo Alto Networks by 96.1% during the third quarter. Winch Advisory Services LLC now owns 149 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $30,000 after buying an additional 73 shares during the last quarter. MTM Investment Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Palo Alto Networks during the second quarter valued at $31,000. Finally, Caitlin John LLC bought a new stake in Palo Alto Networks in the 3rd quarter worth about $31,000. 79.82% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

PANW has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. BTIG Research reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $200.00 target price on shares of Palo Alto Networks in a research report on Wednesday, February 18th. Daiwa Securities Group reduced their price target on shares of Palo Alto Networks from $212.00 to $175.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, February 24th. Citizens Jmp reissued a “market outperform” rating and set a $250.00 price objective on shares of Palo Alto Networks in a report on Wednesday, February 18th. Jefferies Financial Group restated a “buy” rating on shares of Palo Alto Networks in a research report on Wednesday, February 4th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company started coverage on shares of Palo Alto Networks in a report on Tuesday, March 3rd. They issued an “overweight” rating and a $200.00 target price on the stock. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-four have given a Buy rating and nine have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Palo Alto Networks presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $210.19.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CAO Josh D. Paul sold 800 shares of Palo Alto Networks stock in a transaction 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 directly owned 46,005 shares in the company, valued at approximately $8,502,184.05. The trade was a 1.71% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, EVP Lee Klarich sold 120,768 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $191.03, for a total value of $23,070,311.04. Following the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 298,887 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $57,096,383.61. This represents a 28.78% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold a total of 149,252 shares of company stock valued at $27,888,535 in the last 90 days. 1.40% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Palo Alto Networks Trading Up 0.3%

Shares of PANW stock opened at $167.45 on Tuesday. Palo Alto Networks, Inc. has a 12 month low of $139.57 and a 12 month high of $223.61. The stock has a market cap of $136.64 billion, a P/E ratio of 92.51, a P/E/G ratio of 6.03 and a beta of 0.78. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $169.55 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $189.35.

Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ:PANW) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 18th. The network technology company reported $1.03 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.94 by $0.09. Palo Alto Networks had a net margin of 12.96% and a return on equity of 17.60%. The business had revenue of $2.59 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.58 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $0.81 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 14.9% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Palo Alto Networks, Inc. will post 1.76 earnings per share for the current year.

Palo Alto Networks Company Profile

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.