Palo Alto Networks, Inc. $PANW Shares Purchased by First Citizens Bank & Trust Co.

First Citizens Bank & Trust Co. boosted its stake in Palo Alto Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:PANW) by 126.6% during the third quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 18,600 shares of the network technology company’s stock after acquiring an additional 10,392 shares during the period. First Citizens Bank & Trust Co.’s holdings in Palo Alto Networks were worth $7,390,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of PANW. Grove Bank & Trust raised its holdings in shares of Palo Alto Networks by 7.0% in the third quarter. Grove Bank & Trust now owns 472 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $188,000 after acquiring an additional 31 shares during the last quarter. Riversedge Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in Palo Alto Networks by 2.5% in the 3rd quarter. Riversedge Advisors LLC now owns 1,285 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $511,000 after purchasing an additional 31 shares in the last quarter. Trilogy Capital Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Palo Alto Networks by 1.8% during the 2nd quarter. Trilogy Capital Inc. now owns 2,127 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $725,000 after purchasing an additional 37 shares during the last quarter. Wisconsin Wealth Advisors LLC boosted its stake in shares of Palo Alto Networks by 1.2% during the 2nd quarter. Wisconsin Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 3,206 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $1,093,000 after purchasing an additional 38 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Orrstown Financial Services Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Palo Alto Networks by 1.2% during the 2nd quarter. Orrstown Financial Services Inc. now owns 3,197 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $1,090,000 after purchasing an additional 38 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 79.82% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have recently commented on PANW. Citigroup downgraded shares of Palo Alto Networks from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, September 7th. Wedbush assumed coverage on shares of Palo Alto Networks in a research note on Friday, September 11th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $400.00 price objective on the stock. Robert W. Baird set a $420.00 price objective on shares of Palo Alto Networks and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 2nd. Stephens set a $400.00 target price on shares of Palo Alto Networks and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, September 2nd. Finally, Morgan Stanley set a $410.00 target price on shares of Palo Alto Networks and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, September 21st. Thirty-eight analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and twelve have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Palo Alto Networks presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $392.38.

Palo Alto Networks Trading Down 1.7%

NASDAQ PANW opened at $397.03 on Wednesday. The company has a market cap of $324.77 billion, a P/E ratio of 778.51, a P/E/G ratio of 11.62 and a beta of 0.93. Palo Alto Networks, Inc. has a 12 month low of $139.57 and a 12 month high of $432.33. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.06, a current ratio of 0.87 and a quick ratio of 0.87. The company has a 50-day moving average of $372.63 and a 200-day moving average of $297.62.

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

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Palo Alto Networks news, CAO Josh D. Paul sold 900 shares of the business’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 transaction, the chief accounting officer owned 72,484 shares in the company, valued at $27,085,821.12. The trade was a 1.23% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, Director Aparna Bawa sold 1,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, September 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $373.61, for a total value of $373,610.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director directly owned 5,437 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,031,317.57. The trade was a 15.54% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 54,210 shares of company stock worth $20,823,029. Corporate insiders own 1.40% of the company’s stock.

Palo Alto Networks Profile

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.