- 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.
