Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ:PANW) is expected to report fourth-quarter results on Monday, August 19, after the market close.

Analysts expect earnings of $1.41 per share (-2.1% y/y) on sales of $2.16 billion (+10.8% y/y).

Investors expect strong results despite We will review the near-term issues and look for comments on the platform strategy and guidance for the next financial year.

Wells Fargo expects fourth-quarter 2024 results to be strong, but fiscal 2025 guidance could disappoint slightly. “Our reseller reviews indicate that Palo Alto finished fiscal 2024 with strong earnings and the company is likely benefiting from the CrowdStrike outage. Looking ahead, management will provide guidance on a number of key metrics for fiscal 2025, although we expect management’s guidance to be slightly below consensus estimates for billings, RPO and FCF margin.”

Over the past two years, PANW has beaten EPS estimates 100% of the time and revenue estimates 88% of the time.

Over the past three months, earnings per share estimates have been revised upwards 23 times and downwards 13 times. Revenue estimates have been revised upwards 30 times and downwards 6 times.

Wedbush suggests, “PANW remains one of our favorite cybersecurity stocks for next year, despite some near-term issues related to the platformization strategy Nikesh & Co. are implementing in the space. While we don’t expect major fireworks with Q4 earnings on Monday after the market closes, we believe the seeds are being planted for growth for a very important fiscal year 2025 ahead. We maintain our OUTPERFORM rating and our $375 price target.”

Palo Alto has a Hold rating from the SA Quant rating system and is recommended as a Buy by Wall Street analysts.

Year-to-date, PANW is up 14.72%, just behind the broader S&P 500 index, which is up 16.21%.