Shares of Palo Alto Networks Inc
Here are the key analyst insights:
- Needham analyst Mike Cikos maintained a Buy rating, while reducing the price target from $230 to $200.
- Goldman Sachs analyst Gabriela Borges reiterated a Buy rating, while slashing the price target from $240 to $224.
- Scotiabank analyst Patrick Colville reaffirmed a Sector Outperform rating, while reducing the price target from $228 to $180.
- DA Davidson analyst Rudy Kessinger reiterated a Buy rating, while cutting the price target from $210 to $190.
- Rosenblatt Securities analyst Catharine Trebnick maintained a Buy rating and price target of $225.
- BTIG analyst Gray Powell reaffirmed a Buy rating and price target of $200.
- Wedbush analyst Dan Ives maintained an Outperform rating and price target of $225.
- Citizens JMP Securities analyst Trevor Walsh reiterated a Market Outperform rating and price target of $250.
"We calculate Net-New ARR outperformed the sell-side estimate by ~$11 million," the analyst wrote. The company guided to NGS ARR for the fiscal third quarter at $7.94-$7.96 billion, including $1.47 billion from acquisitions, which came in-line with consensus on an organic basis, he further stated.
Goldman Sachs: Palo Alto Networks reported NGS ARR 3% above Street expectations, primarily due to around $200 million from the Chronosphere acquisition, Borges said. The stock came under pressure due to limited organic upside and "inorganic moving pieces that make it more challenging to assess the performance of the core business," she added.
The company's recent acquisitions have expanded its portfolio to "better address future enterprise security use cases," the analyst wrote. Palo Alto Networks continues to be "well positioned to consolidate share of wallet," she further stated.
Scotiabank: Palo Alto Networks delivered a "decent" performance and management broadly maintained the organic outlook for fiscal 2026, Colville said. He added, however, that the stock was punished due to the lack of organic upside.
"Palo Alto Networks has a lot of balls in the air integrating its acquisitions of CyberArk, Chronosphere, and now a tuck-in of Koi," the analyst wrote. Palo Alto Networks' core business is "sticky" and the company is "pulling strategic levers to accelerate consolidation in the most growthy areas of cybersec," he further stated.
DA Davidson: Palo Alto Networks reported revenues and earnings of $2.594 billion and $1.03 per share, beating consensus of $2.582 billion and 94 cents per share, respectively, Kessinger said. The limited organic upside in NGS ARR and RPO disappointed investors, he added.
Organic NNARR grew 11% year-on-year, decelerating from 20% organically in the previous quarter, to around $280 million, which missed expectations of around $300 million, the analyst stated. The company guided to earnings of 78 cents per share for the fiscal third quarter, below consensus of 92 cents per share, he further said.
Rosenblatt Securities: Although Palo Alto Networks delivered "another solid quarter," the stock came under pressure due to its guidance reflecting a decline in earnings compression and "M&A noise that we view as more optical than fundamental," Trebnick said. Management lowered the full-year earnings guidance from $3.80-$3.90 per share to $3.65-$3.70 per share to reflect higher cost structures and dilution related to the CyberArk transaction, she added.
The company announced plans acquire agentic endpoint security company Koi, just after closing the multi-billion-dollar CyberArk and Chronosphere deals, the analyst stated. "We view the current pullback as overdone given management's clear strategy to unify Identity, Observability, and Agentic Security as the control fabric for securing autonomous enterprise workflows at machine speed," she further wrote.
BTIG: Palo Alto Networks reported better-than-expected revenues driven by higher-than-anticipated product revenue growth, Powell said. Excluding Chronosphere, the company's NGS ARR came in at $6.13 billion, beating Street expectations of $6.128 billion, he added.
"While the quarter itself was moderately disappointing, the outlook landed about where we thought it would," the analyst wrote. The revenue guidance was raised by $15 million on an organic basis to $10.535 billion, representing 14.2% growth, he further stated.
Wedbush: Palo Alto Networks reported RPO of $16.00 billion, above consensus of $15.78 billion, Ives said. "PANW also saw a 48% y/y increase in $5+ million accounts and 50% y/y in $10+ million accounts," he wrote.
Management raised their full-year total revenue guidance to $11.28-$11.31 billion, up from their prior outlook of $10.50-$10.54 billion, which came in above Street expectations of $10.53 billion, the analyst stated. The full-year earnings guidance was lowered due to a large increase in shares outstanding following the recent CyberArk and Chronosphere acquisitions, he further said.
Citizens JMP Securities: Palo Alto Networks reported "relatively stable" results, with revenues growing 15% year-on-year and non-GAAP operating margins of 30.3%, Walsh said. NGS ARR rose 33% year-on-year to $6.33 billion, beating consensus of $6.13 billion, he added.
"Management's outlook reflects a platformization strategy that continues to deliver," the analyst wrote.
PANW Price Action: Shares of Palo Alto Networks had declined by 6.11% to $153.52 at the time of publication on Wednesday.
