| Saturday | ||||
Catch up on the top… | ||||
| Thursday | ||||
The Defense Information… The Defense Information Systems Agency, or DISA, which is responsible for secure White House communications, said personal data may have been compromised "in a data breach" that occured between May and July 2019, according to Reuters' Christopher Bing, citing a letter sent on Thursday to individuals whose data may have been taken. The warning letter viewed by Reuters did not indicate what specific part of DISA's network had been breached or identify which other individuals may have had their data compromised, the report noted. Publicly traded companies in the cybersecurity space include Barracuda (CUDA), Check Point (CHKP), F5 Networks (FFIV), FireEye (FEYE), Fortinet (FTNT), Imperva (IMPV), Palo Alto Networks (PANW), Proofpoint (PFPT) and Qualys (QLYS). Reference Link | ||||
| Over a week ago | ||||
Needham analyst Alex… Needham analyst Alex Henderson downgraded Radware (RDWR) to Hold from Buy after its below-consensus outlook for Q1 and FY20 due to higher tax rates and accelerated operating expenditures. The analyst believe that the cyber security solution space has become more competitive after F5 (FFIV) acquisitions of of Shape and NGNIX, CloudFlare and Fastly Security offerings and continuing share gains at Akamai (AKAM), though Radware management also the discussed the impact of coronavirus on their China business. | ||||
Needham analyst Alex… Needham analyst Alex Henderson upgraded F5 Networks to Buy from Hold with a $160 price target. The analyst notes that he had previously believed that the company was too slow to shift its strategy to a more cloud-centric model, but its recent steps have placed it on a software-driven growth curve. Henderson adds that there are "very few software subscription companies" that are growing at 6%-10% per year while offering a "pristine" balance sheet and an operating margin above 30%. | ||||
Needham upgraded F5… Needham upgraded F5 Networks to Buy from Hold. | ||||
Check out today's top… | |
Disney (DIS) is going to… Disney (DIS) is going to be a large customer for the content delivery networks given the ramp of Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu, Piper Sandler analyst James Fish tells investors in a research note. The analyst views the one hour of average Disney+ watching, the quick ramp of paid subs, exit subs across all three services, coming original content, less than 5% content delivery networks cost and future launches of the over-the-stop services into new countries as "strong positives" for content delivery networks. Fastly (FSLY) has the most relative exposure to over-the-top within its business, while Akamai (AKAM) will get the largest traffic share among the CDN vendors, according to Fish. Further, the analyst says he recently learned that F5 Networks' (FFIV) NGINX unit has a utility-based enterprise license agreement with Disney+ that should enable it to also benefit as the streaming service grows. In addition, coronavirus fears may also drive more content delivery network business as consumers stay at home more, argues Fish. He believes the early success of Disney+ is a "strong positive" for Akamai, Fastly and F5 and continues to recommend owning all three stocks. | |
MKM Partners analyst… MKM Partners analyst Michael Genovese lowered his price target on F5 Networks to $144 and kept his Neutral rating, saying that while the company beat on Q1 earnings, the dilution related to its $1B Shape Security acquisition is higher than he anticipated. The analyst adds that F5 Networks' enterprise customer sales at 65% of the total marked a "nice recovery" sequentially from 61% in Q4, though the company's international markets still performed better that the Americas in Q1. | |
RBC Capital analyst… RBC Capital analyst Matthew Hedberg lowered his price target on F5 Networks to $145 after its "mixed" Q1 results and below-consensus Q2 guidance, noting that while earnings beat consensus, product revenue was weaker than expected. The analyst notes that the company's software growth decelerated and systems revenue declined again, with strength in services revenue driving the overall top-line beat. Hedberg keeps his Sector Perform rating and looks ahead to the company's March 3rd analyst day for updated Horizon 2 targets. | |
JPMorgan analyst Samik… JPMorgan analyst Samik Chatterjee lowered his price target for F5 Networks to $156 from $158 and keeps a Neutral rating on the shares following last night's results. The company reported "strong" fiscal Q1 results that were largely in line with expectations, but key variances relative to expectations included Software revenue growth decelerating substantially on account of sales reorganization and typical lumpiness of contract wins, Chatterjee tells investors in a research note. Further, F5 offered a lower earnings outlook for Q2 and fiscal 2020 due to dilution from Shape, adds the analyst. |