Mizuho analyst Gregg Moskowitz initiated coverage of nine Security Software companies. In his industry update note, titled "Welcome to the New Age of Software - Part II," he noted that "macro concerns remain very prevalent and 4Q tech fundamentals were uneven," but added that he expects "security companies will navigate these issues well, due in part to the fact that cybersecurity consistently ranks at or near the top of IT spending priorities by CIOs." The analyst concluded that "while hardly immune, we would expect security spend to be relatively resilient." Moskowitz noted that global security revenue is currently well in excess of $40B, and growing at a roughly high-single digit CAGR. However, Moskowitz also noted that the security market is very fragmented and contains many sub-segments. He sees four security themes that he believes will become increasingly important, and should help to underpin healthy growth in the sector in the coming years -- Zero Trust, Identity Management, Next-gen Endpoint, and Machine Learning/Automation. The analyst expects to see "generally similar levels of security M&A activity in 2019," although he noted that one variable that could cause this to skew higher would be a large security vendor takeout, which is a historical rarity. Moskowitz initiated three stocks with Buy ratings -- Palo Alto Networks (PANW), CyberArk Software (CYBR), and Rapid7 (RPD) -- and six stocks with Neutral ratings -- Check Point Software (CHKP), FireEye (FEYE), Fortinet (FTNT), Okta (OKTA), Proofpoint (PFPT), and Symantec (SYMC).