Stephens said Palo Alto Networks' better than expected Q4 revenue was driven by continued strength in demand for the company's subscription offerings like WildFire and Traps. The firm views the quarterly results as more evidence that Palo Alto continues gaining share in the Next Generation Firewall market. Stephens raised its price target for Palo Alto to $190 from $180 and keeps an Overweight rating on the stock.

KeyBanc lowered the firm's price target on Palo Alto Networks to $355 from $380 on lower peer multiples, while keeping an Overweight rating on the shares. The firm says that at some point, the case for optimism needs to be backed up by some optimistic data, and its 1Q24 VAR Survey did not deliver it. IT budgets are still in hiding at this point, with just 50% of KeyBanc's respondents meeting or exceeding their goal in the Q1, the lowest quarterly reading since the heart of the pandemic, and sentiment from the follow-up calls with some individuals also has down ticked. The firm's Q4 2023 VAR survey was iffy, the outlook in 2024 from its CIO survey in January was also not great, its SMB survey was worse than expected, and now 2024 is off to a difficult start - "let's just call a trend a trend," KeyBanc adds.