The stock market rose on Friday after September labor data renewed investors’ confidence on the health of the US economy. The jobs report showed that the US economy added 254,000 jobs in September, above the 150,000 estimates. In addition, unemployment rate was slightly lower than forecast at 4.1%.
Overall, S&P 500 was up 0.9% to 5,751, while NASDAQ increased 1.2% to 18,138.
Tweet of the Day
I added AMD $AMD to my Growth Portfolio this month. great timing! During the next 4 qtrs, profits are expected to climb 30%, 49%, 77% and 80%. https://t.co/wqlRsQSPkQ
— David Sharek (@GrowthStockGuy) September 26, 2024
Chart of the Day
Here is the ten-year chart of Palo Alto Networks (PANW) as of August 26, 2024, when the stock was at $347.
Palo Alto Networks turns its focus on scaling Next-Generation Security (NGS), as Platformization drives results and boosts Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR). The NGS is a set of products and services that help organizations protect their users and data from cyberattacks. Products include: Next-generation firewalls, Next-generation CASB, and Prisma.
Management stated that they are delighted with the results of their performance, as they see strong growth in their NGS offerings. NGS ARR grew 43%, with strong contributions across the portfolio.
Turning to Platformization, this strategy involves offering services for free that clients typically obtain from other providers. This has lowered profitability, but it is working out better than David Sharek expected. Palo Alto Networks added over 90 new platformizations last quarter, and it now has more than 1,000 total platformizations among their 5,000 largest customers. In addition, the average revenue per placement is up greater than 10% in the last fiscal year.
PANW is part of our Growth Portfolio.
