Prime Capital Investment Advisors LLC Increases Position in Palo Alto Networks, Inc. $PANW

Prime Capital Investment Advisors LLC boosted its position in Palo Alto Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:PANW) by 21.0% in the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 88,932 shares of the network technology company’s stock after purchasing an additional 15,405 shares during the period. Prime Capital Investment Advisors LLC’s holdings in Palo Alto Networks were worth $18,108,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other large investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Klingman & Associates LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Palo Alto Networks by 2.2% during the 3rd quarter. Klingman & Associates LLC now owns 2,131 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $434,000 after acquiring an additional 46 shares in the last quarter. Contravisory Investment Management Inc. grew its position in shares of Palo Alto Networks by 1.8% during the third quarter. Contravisory Investment Management Inc. now owns 2,742 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $558,000 after buying an additional 48 shares in the last quarter. Mattern Wealth Management LLC grew its holdings in Palo Alto Networks by 2.9% during the 3rd quarter. Mattern Wealth Management LLC now owns 1,692 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $345,000 after acquiring an additional 48 shares in the last quarter. Astoria Portfolio Advisors LLC. increased its holdings in Palo Alto Networks by 2.1% in the second quarter. Astoria Portfolio Advisors LLC. now owns 2,467 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $496,000 after buying an additional 50 shares during the last quarter. Finally, PTM Wealth Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Palo Alto Networks by 4.0% in the 3rd quarter. PTM Wealth Management LLC now owns 1,300 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $276,000 after acquiring an additional 50 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 79.82% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, EVP Lee Klarich sold 120,768 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $191.03, for a total transaction of $23,070,311.04. Following the completion of 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 ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, Director James J. Goetz sold 12,500 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, December 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $195.33, for a total value of $2,441,625.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director owned 75,184 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $14,685,690.72. This trade represents a 14.26% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders have sold a total of 260,542 shares of company stock worth $49,910,995 over the last quarter. 1.40% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Palo Alto Networks Trading Down 7.2%

NASDAQ:PANW opened at $154.77 on Friday. The company has a 50-day moving average of $185.67 and a 200-day moving average of $193.79. The firm has a market cap of $107.87 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 97.96, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.98 and a beta of 0.75. Palo Alto Networks, Inc. has a twelve month low of $144.15 and a twelve month high of $223.61.

Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ:PANW) last released its earnings results on Thursday, November 20th. The network technology company reported $0.93 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.89 by $0.04. The business had revenue of $2.47 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.46 billion. Palo Alto Networks had a net margin of 11.69% and a return on equity of 17.05%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 15.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $1.56 earnings per share. On average, research analysts forecast that Palo Alto Networks, Inc. will post 1.76 earnings per share for the current year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Robert W. Baird increased their price objective on shares of Palo Alto Networks from $230.00 to $240.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, November 14th. TD Cowen upped their target price on Palo Alto Networks from $230.00 to $255.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, November 13th. Evercore ISI raised their price target on Palo Alto Networks from $220.00 to $250.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, November 13th. Citigroup restated a “buy” rating on shares of Palo Alto Networks in a research note on Monday, January 12th. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities boosted their price target on shares of Palo Alto Networks from $225.00 to $250.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, November 18th. Thirty-one research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, seven have assigned a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Palo Alto Networks presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $229.09.

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.