Dougherty analyst Catharine Trebnick notes that Palo Alto Networks' stock sold off on Friday on the news Dave Penanich, EVP of Field Sales will be leaving the company on September 30th. However, the analyst views the selloff as an "overreaction" to the direction being set by the relatively new CEO, Nikesh Arora, who took over in June of 2018. Trebnick adds that she has not picked up any negative data from her contacts since the article surfaced on Friday. The analyst reiterates a Buy rating and $300 price target on the shares.

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.