Market perspectives and Palo Alto

I just got to my LA from NYC and have two full days ahead here. The markets are through the roof today continuing the trend for the last four months and from the last six years that we have been doing Trading With Cody. Yes, today is Trading With Cody’s six year anniversary. Those of you who have been around from the beginning have several stocks up several hundred percent over the last few years, a few that have done well but not that well and we’ve done a decent job of cutting losses in loses along the way too.

So many pundits and newsletter writers and hedge fund managers and other Wall Streeters have fought this Bubble-Blowing Bull Market while as we have calmly let it ride. Those of you who have been around for many years know that every stock sometimes gets hit just as we have seen with Amazon, Google, Apple, Facebook and other stock picks of ours over the last six years.  Great companies who grow their businesses over time always come back.

Which brings me to Palo Alto Networks this morning. We have just a small 1/3 tranche first position that we purchased a few weeks ago (and which I forgot to mention in the Latest Positions round up from last week).  The quarterly report and guidance from $PANW were close to what Wall Street and all of us were hoping for. The guidance was taken down slightly from 30% topline growth for next year to 25% topline growth for next year. I expect they will actually do more than 30% growth for this year though. It does appear that Cisco and Microsoft are really trying to compete against Palo Alto Networks, so we need to keep that on the radar. As usual, I am not going to rush in and buy into the panic today, rather, I will likely be adding another 1/3 tranche to our $PANW in the next few days.

Speaking of $CSCO, I have heard some rumblings that $CSCO is interested in $ERIC. That would absolutely shock me given me that $ERIC is in a secularly decling telecom business and $CSCO should be focused on beating $PANW and others in the internet world. More to come if I get any more info/buzz/details on Cisco-for-Ericsson.