Wedbush 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 TENB and Palo Alto Networks Inc PANW.
Ives expects a plethora of cyber deals in the year ahead from both strategic cloud stalwarts (Microsoft Corp MSFT, Oracle Corp 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 QLYS PT from $146 to $160 (7.3% upside), Check Point Software Technologies Ltd CHKP PT from $142 to $155 (8% upside), CyberArk Software Ltd CYBR PT from $180 to $195 (11.5% upside) and Fortinet Inc 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.