New York, January 9, 2026, 15:14 ET — Regular session
- PANW shares were down about 0.8% in afternoon trade, lagging a broader market rise
- A new SEC Form 144 disclosed a planned sale by officer Lee Klarich under a 10b5-1 plan
- Focus shifts to the next earnings update and any read-through on big pending deals
Palo Alto Networks shares slipped on Friday, underperforming a broader tech-led rise, after a late-day regulatory filing flagged a planned insider sale. The stock was down $1.52, or 0.8%, at $189.28, after trading between $187.42 and $192.13.
A Form 144 filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission showed Lee Klarich, listed as an officer of the company, intends to sell 120,768 class A shares through Goldman Sachs with an aggregate market value of about $23 million. The filing said the sale is tied to a Rule 10b5-1 plan adopted on Sept. 27, 2024 — a pre-set trading program designed to reduce the risk of trading on non-public information — and it represents roughly 0.02% of Palo Alto’s 697 million shares outstanding. (Streetinsider)
The disclosure landed after a choppy week for the stock: Palo Alto jumped 4.3% on Wednesday and fell 1.6% on Thursday, giving back part of that move. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq-tracking ETFs were higher on Friday, leaving PANW’s drop looking more stock-specific than macro. (MarketWatch)
Cybersecurity shares have been mixed. CrowdStrike was up about 1.5% even after it announced a deal for identity security firm SGNL, while Zscaler fell about 1.5% and Check Point and Fortinet rose modestly. (Investors)
Palo Alto has pushed investors to focus on subscription-driven growth and cash generation as it broadens its product suite. In November, it raised its fiscal 2026 revenue and adjusted profit forecasts when it announced the $3.35 billion purchase of cloud monitoring firm Chronosphere, with that deal — and its previously announced CyberArk acquisition — expected to close in the second half of its fiscal year. (Reuters)
That backdrop makes timing awkward. An insider sale, even under a 10b5-1 plan, can still add supply just as investors look for clean follow-through on billings and annual recurring revenue, or ARR — the contracted revenue a company expects to repeat each year.
But the stock has its own traps. Any sign that big customers are stretching purchase decisions, or that integration costs from pending deals run hotter than expected, could squeeze margins and keep a lid on the valuation.
For now, the Form 144 is only a notice of intent. It does not guarantee the shares will be sold, and traders will watch for the actual transactions to show up in later insider-trading disclosures.
The next major test is the company’s fiscal second-quarter results, which Yahoo Finance’s earnings calendar lists for Feb. 12 after the close; Palo Alto has yet to confirm a date. Guidance and an update on deal timing will likely matter more than the size of any one planned sale. (Yahoo Finance)
