New York, Feb 10, 2026, 11:06 EST — Regular session.
- Palo Alto Networks shares up about 0.5% in late morning trade, tracking a broader lift in cybersecurity names
- Nasdaq said CyberArk will be halted after-hours Tuesday ahead of a tentative Feb 11 merger close
- Investors turn to Palo Alto’s Feb 17 results for demand signals and first read on post-deal priorities
Palo Alto Networks, Inc. shares rose about 0.5% to $166.88 in late morning trade on Tuesday, as a Nasdaq corporate actions notice laid out a tight timetable for the closing of Palo Alto’s planned merger with identity-security firm CyberArk. Nasdaq said CyberArk stock would be halted after the after-hours session at around 7:50 p.m. ET on Tuesday, remain halted on Feb. 11 and be suspended effective Feb. 12, with the merger “tentatively scheduled” to close before the market opens on Feb. 11. 1
The timing matters because the deal is about to shift from a headline to a balance-sheet event. Palo Alto agreed in 2025 to buy CyberArk for $45.00 in cash plus 2.2005 shares of Palo Alto stock per CyberArk share — an equity value of about $25 billion — betting that identity security will become a larger piece of corporate defense budgets. Chief executive Nikesh Arora called it an inflection point, saying the company believed “that moment for Identity Security is now.” 2
Investors also have an earnings marker in view. Palo Alto said it will report fiscal second-quarter results after U.S. markets close on Feb. 17 and host a webcast later that day. Traders will look for signs of steady security spending and any early hints on how the company plans to stitch CyberArk into its product platforms. 3
Cybersecurity stocks were firmer more broadly on Tuesday. The Amplify Cybersecurity ETF and First Trust Nasdaq Cybersecurity ETF were both up more than 1%, while CrowdStrike, Fortinet and Zscaler traded higher as well. The Nasdaq-100 tracking fund QQQ and the S&P 500 tracker SPY were modestly higher.
CyberArk itself on Tuesday pointed to the channel machine that Palo Alto is buying into. “Our partners are a critical extension of our sales organization,” said Chris Moore, CyberArk’s senior vice president for global channels, as the company announced its 2025 global partner award recipients. 4
Identity security is the set of tools that decides who — or what — can get into systems. A big slice is privileged access management, or PAM, which locks down high-permission accounts that hackers often target first.
For Palo Alto, the pitch is straightforward: add the identity layer and it can sell a broader “platform” to big customers that already use its network and cloud security tools. The numbers, and how fast the sales teams can cross-sell without losing focus, will do the talking.
But the schedule is still framed as tentative. If the closing slips, or if integration costs and staff turnover run hotter than expected, investors could get stuck on the downside case — dilution from the stock component, execution risk and a tougher bar for the next guidance update.
The next catalysts are close together: the planned after-hours halt in CyberArk on Tuesday, the expected deal close before the Feb. 11 open, and Palo Alto’s Feb. 17 results and call — the first real checkpoint for how the combined story will be managed.
