Palo Alto, Nikola, XPeng, Tesla, Nvidia, and More Stock Market Movers

Palo Alto Networks

(ticker: PANW), the cybersecurity, topped fiscal fourth-quarter earnings expectations, and its profit forecast for the first quarter also beat estimates. Palo Alto said Friday it expects first-quarter billings of $2.05 billion to $2.08 billion, up 17% to 19%. The company’s fiscal 2024 forecasts for adjusted earnings and billings also were better than expectations. The stock was rising 15%. Fellow cybersecurity stocks also were trading higher, with

CrowdStrike

(CRWD) up 4.5% and

Zscaler

(ZS) up 5.5%.

Napco Security Technologies

(NSSC), which makes electronic security equipment and wireless communication devices for intrusion and fire alarm systems, was falling 39% after saying it identified errors related to the calculation of cost of goods sold and inventory for each of the first three quarters of fiscal 2023. Napco said inventories were overstated and cost of goods sold was understated “resulting in overstated gross profit, operating income and net income for each period.”

Earthstone Energy

(ESTE) was rising 15% after

Permian Resources

(PR) agreed to acquire the energy company in an all-stock transaction valued at about $4.5 billion. Permian shares gained 1.1%.

Nikola

(NKLA) was falling 10% after the electric truck maker said it “may incur significant expenses” from the voluntary recall of more than 200 of its EVs and “there can be no assurance as to when we will be able to resume production of our BEV trucks.” Separately, the company announced plans to offer $325 million in senior convertible bonds in a registered direct offering.

U.S.-listed shares of

XPeng

(XPEV) were rising 7.4% to $16.09 after analysts at BofA raised their recommendation on the Chinese electric-vehicle maker to Buy from Neutral and lifted the price target to $22 from $16.30. The stock fell 4.3% on Friday after reporting second-quarter earnings and issuing solid third-quarter guidance.

EV giant

Tesla

(TSLA) was rising 4.4%. The stock has dropped for 13 out of the past 14 days. Analysts at Baird placed the company on its list of “best ideas” after second-quarter earnings.

Nvidia

(NVDA) was up 4.9%. Expectations are riding high for the chip maker’s earnings on Wednesday. The chip maker has found itself a key beneficiary of the investing frenzy over artificial intelligence. 

Broadcom

(AVGO) rose 2.4% and

VMware

(VMW) gained 4.6% after the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority cleared

Broadcom

‘s $69 billion acquisition of the cloud infrastructure company.

Zoom Video Communications

(ZM) is scheduled to report second-quarter earnings after the stock market closes. Shares of the videoconferencing company were up 1.6%.

Meta Platforms

(META) is expected this week to launch of desktop version of its microblogging app Threads, a competitor to X, the former Twitter, The Wall Street Journal reported. When Threads launched in July, it became the fastest app to reach 100 million downloads, but its use has fallen in recent weeks. Shares of Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, were up 0.4%.

Write to Joe Woelfel at joseph.woelfel@barrons.com