First Western Trust Bank Acquires New Stake in Palo Alto Networks, Inc. $PANW

First Western Trust Bank acquired a new position in shares of Palo Alto Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:PANW) in the 2nd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund acquired 1,009 shares of the network technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $206,000.

Other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Nuveen LLC bought a new stake in Palo Alto Networks during the 1st quarter worth about $810,047,000. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC acquired a new position in Palo Alto Networks during the second quarter worth $633,068,000. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Palo Alto Networks by 41.9% in the 1st quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 7,235,406 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $1,234,650,000 after purchasing an additional 2,134,735 shares during the period. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD lifted its position in shares of Palo Alto Networks by 77.1% in the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 3,879,506 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $662,000,000 after buying an additional 1,688,432 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Palo Alto Networks by 2.5% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 62,775,544 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $10,712,019,000 after acquiring an additional 1,541,637 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 79.82% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, EVP Dipak Golechha sold 5,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $204.19, for a total transaction of $1,020,950.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president directly owned 96,135 shares in the company, valued at $19,629,805.65. This trade represents a 4.94% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Nikesh Arora sold 846,408 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $204.06, for a total value of $172,718,016.48. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 275,013 shares in the company, valued at $56,119,152.78. The trade was a 75.48% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold a total of 1,215,830 shares of company stock valued at $249,160,428 over the last 90 days. 2.50% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Palo Alto Networks Price Performance

PANW opened at $210.04 on Thursday. Palo Alto Networks, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $144.15 and a fifty-two week high of $223.61. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $208.61 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $196.84. The firm has a market capitalization of $143.66 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 130.87, a PEG ratio of 5.19 and a beta of 0.95.

Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ:PANW) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Monday, August 18th. The network technology company reported $0.95 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.89 by $0.06. Palo Alto Networks had a net margin of 12.30% and a return on equity of 17.66%. The company had revenue of $2.54 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.50 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $0.75 earnings per share. Palo Alto Networks’s revenue was up 15.8% compared to the same quarter last year. Palo Alto Networks has set its FY 2026 guidance at 3.750-3.850 EPS. Q1 2026 guidance at 0.880-0.900 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Palo Alto Networks, Inc. will post 1.76 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages have recently weighed in on PANW. DA Davidson reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $215.00 target price on shares of Palo Alto Networks in a research note on Tuesday, August 19th. UBS Group set a $250.00 price target on Palo Alto Networks in a research note on Tuesday. Royal Bank Of Canada raised their target price on shares of Palo Alto Networks from $232.00 to $250.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday. Mizuho increased their price target on shares of Palo Alto Networks from $210.00 to $220.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, October 17th. Finally, Piper Sandler upgraded Palo Alto Networks from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and upped their price objective for the stock from $200.00 to $225.00 in a research report on Tuesday, August 12th. Thirty equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, eleven have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $219.50.

Palo Alto Networks Company Profile

Palo Alto Networks, Inc provides cybersecurity solutions worldwide. The company offers firewall appliances and software; and Panorama, a security management solution for the global control of network security platform as a virtual or a physical appliance. It also provides subscription services covering the areas of threat prevention, malware and persistent threat, URL filtering, laptop and mobile device protection, DNS security, Internet of Things security, SaaS security API, and SaaS security inline, as well as threat intelligence, and data loss prevention.