Commerce Bank Acquires New Position in Palo Alto Networks, Inc. $PANW

Commerce Bank acquired a new stake in Palo Alto Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:PANW) in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund acquired 590,311 shares of the network technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $201,308,000. Palo Alto Networks accounts for approximately 0.9% of Commerce Bank’s holdings, making the stock its 21st largest position.

A number of other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. BlackRock Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Palo Alto Networks during the second quarter valued at approximately $25,833,462,000. Norges Bank bought a new position in Palo Alto Networks in the fourth quarter worth approximately $1,415,364,000. Bank of New York Mellon Corp bought a new position in Palo Alto Networks in the second quarter worth approximately $1,569,755,000. Deutsche Bank AG purchased a new position in Palo Alto Networks during the 2nd quarter worth $1,481,236,000. Finally, Bank of America Corp DE increased its holdings in Palo Alto Networks by 16.0% during 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 purchasing an additional 3,101,267 shares during the period. 79.82% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

PANW has been the subject of several research reports. Guggenheim cut Palo Alto Networks from a “neutral” rating to a “reduce” rating in a report on Wednesday, May 27th. Evercore restated an “outperform” rating and set a $415.00 price target on shares of Palo Alto Networks in a research note on Wednesday, July 8th. Berenberg Bank lifted their price objective on Palo Alto Networks from $290.00 to $360.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, June 3rd. Needham & Company LLC upped their price objective on shares of Palo Alto Networks from $350.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 7th. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald increased their target price on shares of Palo Alto Networks from $340.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty have assigned a Buy rating, six have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Palo Alto Networks presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $362.67.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Palo Alto Networks news, CAO Josh D. Paul sold 1,100 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, June 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $285.08, for a total value of $313,588.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer directly owned 81,636 shares in the company, valued at approximately $23,272,790.88. The trade was a 1.33% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, Director Helle Thorning-Schmidt sold 700 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, July 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $346.85, for a total transaction of $242,795.00. Following the sale, the director directly owned 5,898 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,045,721.30. The trade was a 10.61% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold 37,935 shares of company stock valued at $10,809,461 over the last three months. Corporate insiders own 1.40% of the company’s stock.

Palo Alto Networks Stock Up 2.4%

Shares of NASDAQ PANW opened at $358.04 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 0.86, a quick ratio of 0.86 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04. The stock has a market capitalization of $291.80 billion, a PE ratio of 293.48, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 12.02 and a beta of 0.91. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $337.38 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $241.72. Palo Alto Networks, Inc. has a 12-month low of $139.57 and a 12-month high of $398.88.

Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ:PANW) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, June 2nd. The network technology company reported $0.85 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.79 by $0.06. The business had revenue of $3 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.94 billion. Palo Alto Networks had a return on equity of 10.53% and a net margin of 7.95%.The business’s revenue was up 31.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business posted $0.37 EPS. Palo Alto Networks has set its FY 2026 guidance at 3.770-3.790 EPS and its Q4 2026 guidance at 0.960-0.980 EPS. As a group, analysts expect that Palo Alto Networks, Inc. will post 2.02 EPS for the current fiscal 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.