PANW vs WDC: Which Is the Better Buy?
Side-by-side comparison of Palo Alto Networks, Inc. and Western Digital Corporation — fair value, conviction, valuation metrics, and QuantHub research signals.
Updated 2026-08-06.
Palo Alto Networks, Inc. · Technology
$287.78
+2.9% upside to fair value
Grade B
High Quality
VS
Western Digital Corporation · Technology
$519.17
-28.7% upside to fair value
Med Conviction
Grade C+
QuantHub Verdict
PANW has more upside to fair value
(+2.9%).
WDC trades at a lower forward P/E
(27.8x).
These are model outputs — not personalized investment advice.
See all research →
Valuation & Fundamentals
| Metric |
PANW |
WDC |
| Current Price |
$287.78 |
$519.17 |
| Fair Value Estimate |
$296.19 |
$370.00 |
| Upside to Fair Value |
+2.9%
|
-28.7%
|
| Market Cap |
$196.1B |
$178.9B |
| Forward P/E |
248.9x
|
27.8x
|
| EV / EBITDA |
85.9x
|
37.3x
|
| Price / Sales |
18.5x
|
13.9x
|
| Price / FCF |
45.7x
|
51.0x
|
| Revenue Growth YoY |
+31.1%
|
+35.7%
|
| Gross Margin |
71.9%
|
48.9%
|
| Operating Margin |
9.6%
|
34.9%
|
| Return on Equity |
6.3%
|
43.4%
|
| Dividend Yield |
0% |
0.1% |
| FCF Yield |
2.19%
|
2.0%
|
| Analyst Consensus |
Strong Buy
|
Buy
|
Investment Thesis
Palo Alto Networks is a leading cybersecurity company specializing in next-generation security platforms with a strong subscription and support revenue base comprising approximately 81% of total revenue. The company benefits from a wide and expanding competitive moat driven by its AI- and platform-driven cybersecurity solutions, led by a seasoned management team. Despite strong revenue growth of …
Western Digital is now a pure-play, duopoly hard-disk-drive manufacturer, having spun off its NAND flash business as SanDisk in February 2025 and sold its remaining SanDisk stake for $3.1 billion in February 2026. It is riding the same AI-storage supercycle as SanDisk and Micron, but from the mass-capacity nearline HDD side: hyperscalers are buying every high-capacity drive WDC can make for AI da…
Accumulation Zones
| Metric |
PANW |
WDC |
| Zone Low |
$222.14 |
$278.00 |
| Zone High |
$251.76 |
$315.00 |
| In Buy Zone? |
No
|
No
|