We made some changes in our cyber-security holdings in the high growth portfolio. We eliminated the starter positions we had in both Palo Alto and Cloudflare. We also eliminated the position we had in Arista Networks. The positions were too small to be meaningful. The shares of Palo Alto and Cloudflare had appreciated modestly since…
Confluent has once again disappointed its shareholders, and that includes me, and after several quarters of what I would describe as proof of the company’s inability to monetize its technology, my patience is exhausted. For the second time in 18 months, the company described a usage optimization paradigm amongst its cloud native customers that is…
Last evening Palo Alto reported results. Beats and raises all around-except for billings. The result is that PANW shares are down 7.5-8.1% in early trade and there has been some limited read through which brought down shares of Crowdstrike and Zscaler by about 2%+ at least for a time. Crowdstrike and ZS are both going…
I think all of us have been disappointed by the trading action in the high growth IT space thus far in August. Consolidations are uncomfortable, and this one is being compounded, I believe by the spike in long rates, whether or not justified. I will take a bit more look at the course of long…
Microsoft announced what it calls Entra SASE, a solution that is designed to compete with modern security offerings from Zscaler, Palo Alto and Cloudflare. The announcement includes two specific solutions: Entra Internet Access, which is a secure web gateway for SaaS apps and internet traffic as well as Entra Private Access. Internet Access will be…
This morning I made some changes in the High-Growth model portfolio. I sold 600 shares of Global-E at $43.21 which raised $25,920. And I sold the entire position in Palo Alto (105 shares) at $253.41. This raised $26,600. I haven’t made any purchases to offset these sales. I will await tomorrow’s jobs report before making…
Palo Alto reported a decent quarter, with revenues in line, billings ahead of the forecast and continued strength in earnings and free cash flow generation. Bookings, calculated by looking at the growth in RPO balances actually showed accelerating trends. The growth in the company’s largest customer cohorts showed acceleration, with several 8 figure transactions. Part…
Okta-Can this sow’s ear ever return to silk purse status? Stocks have been cratering! IT stocks have been cratering more! Even shares of cyber-security companies have fallen with the HACK (HACK) ETF, which incorporates the major cyber-security vendors down by 30% on a year-to-date basis. But Okta, the leader in the identity management category, has…
How should growth investors position their portfolios to deal with the impending recession Whether the NBER or the president chooses to acknowledge the reality, a recession is either here or shortly impending. It is not, perhaps, a typical recession, but then there is really no such thing as a typical, i.e. inventory based recession any…
This morning Iron Source and Unity Software announced a merger agreement. The exchange ratio has been set at .1089 shares of Unity for each share of Iron Source. Unity shares fell on the news, and also fell as a reaction to the very hot inflation print announced earlier today. Unity, as a business, has run…