How Will Palo Alto Networks Earnings Impact the Cyber Security Industry?

Palo Alto Networks, Inc. (NYSE: PANW | PANW Price Prediction) is scheduled to release its fiscal first-quarter financial results after the markets close on Monday. The consensus estimates are calling for $1.03 in earnings per share (EPS) and $767.77 million in revenue. The same period from last year had $1.17 in EPS and $656.0 million in revenue.

This continues to be one of the most dominant players in its industry. Palo Alto Networks is helping to lead a new era in cybersecurity by protecting thousands of enterprise, government and service provider networks from cyber threats. Unlike fragmented legacy products, its security platform safely enables business operations and delivers protection based on what matters most in today’s dynamic computing environments: applications, users and content.

Palo Alto Networks security platform has new features that were introduced to help security professionals overcome the distractions and time spent on problems caused by the overwhelming volume of alerts and manual processes associated with operating many discrete security products and, instead, expand breach prevention capabilities and boost operational efficiency.

Excluding Monday’s move, Palo Alto Networks has outperformed the broad markets with its stock up about 31% year to date. In the past 52 weeks, the stock is up closer to 48%.

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CyberArk leads the industry with its shares up about 64% in 2019. Fortinet shares are up 47% in the same period. Check Point Software and FireEye have underperformed the markets with their shares up only 14% and 4.5%, respectively.

Here’s what a few analysts are saying about Palo Alto Networks ahead of the report:

• Barclays has an Overweight rating with a $264 price target.
• DA Davidson has a Neutral rating.
• Goldman Sachs has a Buy rating with a $295 price target.
• Piper Jaffray has a Neutral rating with a $270 price target.
• SunTrust Banks has a Buy rating with a $246 price target.
• Northland Securities has a Hold rating with a $240 price target.

Shares of Palo Alto Networks were last seen up nearly 1% at $248.77, with a 52-week range of $165.34 to $260.63. The consensus analyst price target is $264.81.

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