Arora just put $10 million of his own money into PANW.

Not options. Not a compensation grant. His own money, bought on the open market, at whatever price any other investor would pay that day.

Nikesh Arora is the Chairman and CEO of Palo Alto Networks. He bought 68,085 shares at $147 last week. That increased his direct holdings by nearly 25% overnight.

It was also his first open-market purchase since 2019. Six years. He waited six years to make this move.

Here is why that matters.

Tech insiders are notorious for not buying their own shares on the open market.

After all, one of the allures of being a tech employee is the massive amount of stock options many receive in lieu of a big salary. They get equity constantly. For free.

So when a tech CEO spends $10 million of personal capital at the same price you or I would pay, that is not routine. He did not have to do that. It means he thinks the stock is cheap and he wants more of it now.

Tech insiders at IBM, CRM, MSFT, TTD, and RDDT are buying right now, in size. Arora’s move is the one that caught my attention.

Three days after buying, he published an op-ed arguing that AI-powered attacks can now only be stopped by AI-powered defense. He put $10 million behind that argument before he made it in public.

JPMorgan took notice.

Their analyst said the selloff in security software has gone further than fundamentals justify and called the purchase a “substantial vote of confidence.”

The last time I saw tech insiders buying in this size was during the Covid crash. I was buying with them. That trade worked out.

Palo Alto Networks is the cybersecurity platform of record for over 80,000 enterprises worldwide. That includes over three-quarters of the Global 2000. Revenue last quarter was $2.6 billion, up nearly 15% year over year.

Their next-generation security business, the cloud and AI-powered products replacing older point solutions, is growing at 33% annually.

YOUR ACTION PLAN

The stock is down about 30% from its highs. That is why Arora is buying.

Could he be wrong? Yes.

Cybersecurity stocks are getting hit across the board right now and there is no guarantee the selling is done.

If the stock breaks below his purchase price and keeps going, the thesis needs to be revisited.

But Arora is not a speculator. He runs the company. He sees the pipeline, the contracts, and the demand building in real time. When someone with that information spends $10 million at market price, I listen.

I think you should own PANW.