Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ:PANW) Stock Falls 3.4% – Time to Sell?

Palo Alto Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:PANW) shares were down 3.4% during mid-day trading on Wednesday. The company traded as low as $404.63 and last traded at $405.57. Approximately 3,885,204 shares were traded during trading, a decline of 53% from the average session volume of 8,283,100 shares. The stock had previously closed at $419.91.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

PANW has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Stifel Nicolaus set a $415.00 price target on shares of Palo Alto Networks and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 19th. DA Davidson boosted their target price on Palo Alto Networks from $345.00 to $420.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 2nd. Jefferies Financial Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $450.00 price target (up from $335.00) on shares of Palo Alto Networks in a research report on Friday, August 28th. Capital One Financial lifted their price target on Palo Alto Networks from $421.00 to $428.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, September 2nd. Finally, FBN Securities reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of Palo Alto Networks in a research report on Wednesday, July 1st. Thirty-eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and twelve have issued a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Palo Alto Networks presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $391.32.

Palo Alto Networks Price Performance

The firm has a market cap of $341.07 billion, a P/E ratio of 817.54, a PEG ratio of 11.67 and a beta of 0.93. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $369.15 and its 200-day simple moving average is $292.37. The company has a current ratio of 0.87, a quick ratio of 0.87 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.06.

Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ:PANW) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, September 1st. The network technology company reported $1.02 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.98 by $0.04. Palo Alto Networks had a return on equity of 8.50% and a net margin of 2.67%.The firm had revenue of $3.41 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.35 billion. During the same period last year, the company earned $0.95 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 34.5% on a year-over-year basis. 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, analysts forecast that Palo Alto Networks, Inc. will post 2.31 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Palo Alto Networks

In other news, CAO Josh Paul sold 900 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $373.68, for a total transaction of $336,312.00. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer directly owned 72,484 shares in the company, valued at $27,085,821.12. This represents a 1.23% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, Director James Goetz sold 20,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, September 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $376.68, for a total transaction of $7,533,600.00. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Over the last ninety days, insiders have sold 53,960 shares of company stock worth $20,719,959. 1.40% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Palo Alto Networks

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC lifted its holdings in Palo Alto Networks by 15.0% during the first quarter. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC now owns 410,401 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $65,796,000 after purchasing an additional 53,485 shares in the last quarter. Aviva PLC increased its stake in shares of Palo Alto Networks by 5.4% in the fourth quarter. Aviva PLC now owns 568,804 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $104,774,000 after purchasing an additional 29,230 shares in the last quarter. B&D White Capital Company LLC bought a new stake in shares of Palo Alto Networks during the 1st quarter valued at $353,000. Bridgewater Advisors Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Palo Alto Networks during the 2nd quarter valued at $2,159,000. Finally, Granite Islands Private Wealth LLC lifted its stake in shares of Palo Alto Networks by 43.6% during the 1st quarter. Granite Islands Private Wealth LLC now owns 15,342 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $2,453,000 after buying an additional 4,659 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 79.82% of the company’s stock.

About Palo Alto Networks

Palo Alto Networks, Inc is a cybersecurity company that provides solutions designed to help organizations protect networks, endpoints, cloud environments, applications and users from cyber threats. Its offerings include next-generation firewalls, cloud-delivered security services, secure access service edge (SASE) solutions, endpoint protection and security operations tools.

The company also provides platforms and services for cloud security, threat intelligence, incident response, vulnerability management and the automation of security operations.