Line of Credit 
Print FormatWedbush Expresses Bullishness On Cybersecurity Sector; Names Top Picks; Boosts Price Targets
- Wedbush analyst
Daniel Ives believes the cyber security sector is poised to have a full year ahead with a solid Q1 earnings season despite jitters around Fed tapering and rates rising. - Ives considers cyber security as a "safety blanket tech sector" in a Category 5 storm.
- While investors will worry about valuations on hyper-growth names in the near term, the analyst's checks over the last month have been the strongest for the cyber security sector in a decade, with a further uptick seen in large, seven-figure deal flow in the field.
- Wedbush's top 2 Cyber Security picks for 2022 are Tenable Holdings Inc NASDAQ:TENB and Palo Alto Networks Inc NASDAQ:PANW.
- Ives expects a plethora of cyber deals in the year ahead from both strategic cloud stalwarts (Microsoft Corp NASDAQ: MSFT, Oracle Corp NYSE:ORCL) and financial buyers.
- Ives also believes the Biden Administration Cyber Security Executive Order laser-focused on the troubling trend of cyber-attacks and has catalyzed more spending on the federal front in the field.
- Given Ives' increasing bullish checks on the cyber security space, he adjusted price targets higher for a handful of its favorite Outperform cyber names.
- He raised PANW price target from
$630 to$660 (5% upside), Qualys Inc NASDAQ:QLYS PT from$146 to$160 (7.3% upside), Check Point Software Technologies Ltd NASDAQ:CHKP PT from$142 to$155 (8% upside), CyberArk Software Ltd NASDAQ:CYBR PT from$180 to$195 (11.5% upside) and Fortinet Inc NASDAQ:FTNT PT from$350 to$370 (11% upside). - Price Action: PANW shares traded lower by 0.43% at
$626.30 on the last check Thursday.
