Portland Investment Counsel Inc. Acquires New Holdings in Palo Alto Networks, Inc. $PANW

Portland Investment Counsel Inc. bought a new stake in Palo Alto Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:PANW) during the second quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor bought 1,796 shares of the network technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $612,000.

Several other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Darwin Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Palo Alto Networks during the second quarter valued at about $25,000. Knuff & Co LLC acquired a new position in shares of Palo Alto Networks in the 4th quarter worth approximately $26,000. Solstein Capital LLC purchased a new position in shares of Palo Alto Networks during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $26,000. Sittner & Nelson LLC boosted its position in shares of Palo Alto Networks by 73.8% during the 4th quarter. Sittner & Nelson LLC now owns 146 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $27,000 after purchasing an additional 62 shares during the period. Finally, N.E.W. Advisory Services LLC acquired a new stake in Palo Alto Networks in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $27,000. Hedge funds and other 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 on Tuesday, June 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $289.56, for a total value of $1,447,800.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 145,250 shares in the company, valued at approximately $42,058,590. This trade represents a 3.33% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director James J. Goetz sold 20,000 shares of Palo Alto Networks stock in a transaction on Friday, June 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $279.90, for a total transaction of $5,598,000.00. Following the sale, the director directly owned 20,000 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,598,000. This trade represents a 50.00% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold 37,935 shares of company stock valued at $10,809,461 over the last ninety days. 1.40% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Palo Alto Networks Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ PANW opened at $358.04 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04, a current ratio of 0.86 and a quick ratio of 0.86. The company has a market cap of $291.80 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 293.48, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 12.00 and a beta of 0.91. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $337.38 and its two-hundred day moving average is $242.19. Palo Alto Networks, Inc. has a 1-year low of $139.57 and a 1-year high of $398.88.

Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ:PANW) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, June 2nd. The network technology company reported $0.85 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.79 by $0.06. Palo Alto Networks had a return on equity of 10.53% and a net margin of 7.95%.The business had revenue of $3 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.94 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $0.37 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 31.1% compared to the same quarter last year. Palo Alto Networks has set its FY 2026 guidance at 3.770-3.790 EPS and its Q4 2026 guidance at 0.960-0.980 EPS. Analysts forecast that Palo Alto Networks, Inc. will post 2.02 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have issued reports on PANW. Barclays reissued an “overweight” rating and issued a $370.00 target price (up from $315.00) on shares of Palo Alto Networks in a research report on Wednesday, August 5th. Royal Bank Of Canada reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $434.00 price objective (up from $330.00) on shares of Palo Alto Networks in a research note on Friday, August 14th. Argus set a $425.00 price objective on Palo Alto Networks in a report on Tuesday, July 21st. TD Cowen increased their target price on Palo Alto Networks from $360.00 to $400.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, August 17th. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities raised their target price on Palo Alto Networks from $275.00 to $355.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, June 3rd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty have assigned a Buy rating, six have assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $362.67.

Palo Alto Networks Profile

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.