Van Hulzen Asset Management LLC Grows Stock Holdings in Palo Alto Networks, Inc. $PANW

Van Hulzen Asset Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Palo Alto Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:PANW) by 437.9% in the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 22,856 shares of the network technology company’s stock after buying an additional 18,607 shares during the quarter. Van Hulzen Asset Management LLC’s holdings in Palo Alto Networks were worth $7,794,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the business. California State Teachers Retirement System lifted its stake in Palo Alto Networks by 35,252.4% during the second quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System now owns 417,760,413 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $142,464,656,000 after purchasing an additional 416,578,710 shares during the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. purchased a new position in Palo Alto Networks in the second quarter valued at approximately $25,833,462,000. Norges Bank purchased a new position in Palo Alto Networks in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $1,415,364,000. Legal & General Group Plc acquired a new stake in Palo Alto Networks during the second quarter worth approximately $1,968,304,000. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp purchased a new stake in shares of Palo Alto Networks during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $1,569,755,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 79.82% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity

In other Palo Alto Networks news, Director Helle Thorning-Schmidt sold 700 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, July 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $346.85, for a total value of $242,795.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 5,898 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,045,721.30. This represents a 10.61% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, Director James J. Goetz sold 20,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, June 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $279.90, for a total value of $5,598,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 20,000 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,598,000. This represents a 50.00% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders have sold a total of 37,703 shares of company stock valued at $10,900,823 in the last ninety days. 1.40% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Palo Alto Networks Price Performance

PANW stock opened at $335.10 on Thursday. Palo Alto Networks, Inc. has a 12-month low of $139.57 and a 12-month high of $398.88. The company has a market cap of $273.11 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 657.07, a PEG ratio of 9.73 and a beta of 0.91. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $349.79 and a 200-day moving average of $259.23. The company has a current ratio of 0.87, a quick ratio of 0.86 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.06.

Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ:PANW) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, September 1st. The network technology company reported $1.02 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.98 by $0.04. The company had revenue of $3.41 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.35 billion. Palo Alto Networks had a return on equity of 8.50% and a net margin of 2.67%.Palo Alto Networks’s revenue was up 34.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $0.95 earnings per share. 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, equities analysts expect that Palo Alto Networks, Inc. will post 2.3 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages recently weighed in on PANW. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price target on shares of Palo Alto Networks from $326.00 to $384.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 25th. New Street Research set a $415.00 target price on Palo Alto Networks in a research report on Tuesday, August 18th. William Blair reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of Palo Alto Networks in a research report on Tuesday, June 16th. Scotiabank downgraded Palo Alto Networks from a “sector outperform” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 2nd. Finally, FBN Securities reiterated an “outperform” rating on shares of Palo Alto Networks in a research note on Wednesday, July 1st. Thirty-nine investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and eleven have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Palo Alto Networks has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $386.32.

About Palo Alto Networks

Palo Alto Networks, Inc is a cybersecurity company that provides security products and services to businesses, governments and other organizations worldwide. The company helps customers protect networks, cloud environments, endpoints, applications and connected devices from cyber threats.

Its portfolio includes next-generation firewalls and network security technologies, as well as cloud-delivered security solutions such as Prisma Access and Prisma Cloud. Palo Alto Networks also offers Cortex products for endpoint protection, security operations, threat detection and response, and automation.