Palo Alto rises on Piper Sandler target price hike, upgrade to 'overweight'

** Shares of Palo Alto Networks PANW.O up 1.9% at $171.2 premarket

** Piper Sandler upgrades cybersecurity firm to "overweight" from "neutral"; hikes PT to $225 from $200, implying a 34% upside

** Cites early success of co's platformization strategy boosting bookings, future revenue growth

** On the CyberArk acquisition, "PANW is acquiring one of the highest quality assets in security to further accelerate the consolidation opportunity," Piper said

** 38 of 54 brokerages rate stock "buy" or higher, 14 "hold" and 2 "sell" or lower; median PT is $215 - data compiled by LSEG

** As of last close, PANW down 7.6% this year