Fortinet, Inc. $FTNT Stock: Inspire Trust Co. N.A. Cuts Position

Inspire Trust Co. N.A. lessened its stake in shares of Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) by 20.6% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 38,500 shares of the software maker’s stock after selling 10,000 shares during the period. Inspire Trust Co. N.A.’s holdings in Fortinet were worth $6,882,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of FTNT. BlackRock Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Fortinet in the 2nd quarter worth about $9,561,650,000. Bank of New York Mellon Corp purchased a new stake in Fortinet during the 2nd quarter valued at about $1,432,842,000. Legal & General Group Plc purchased a new stake in Fortinet during the 2nd quarter valued at about $979,062,000. First Trust Advisors LP increased its stake in Fortinet by 45.5% during the 1st quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 11,506,173 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $940,284,000 after purchasing an additional 3,598,487 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership increased its stake in Fortinet by 87.4% during the 1st quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 9,651,024 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $788,682,000 after purchasing an additional 4,500,194 shares in the last quarter. 83.71% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Activity at Fortinet

In other Fortinet news, CEO Ken Xie sold 161,483 shares of Fortinet stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $129.31, for a total value of $20,881,366.73. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 52,972,372 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $6,849,857,423.32. The trade was a 0.30% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. Also, VP Michael Xie sold 3,121 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $129.49, for a total value of $404,138.29. Following the sale, the vice president owned 9,918,360 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,284,328,436.40. This trade represents a 0.03% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. Insiders have sold a total of 221,304 shares of company stock worth $30,675,309 over the last quarter. Company insiders own 17.60% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have issued reports on FTNT. Evercore set a $165.00 target price on shares of Fortinet in a report on Thursday, July 30th. Sanford C. Bernstein reissued a “market perform” rating and set a $145.00 price target (up from $102.00) on shares of Fortinet in a research report on Thursday, September 17th. Scotiabank decreased their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $163.00 to $140.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, October 29th. Wedbush reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $140.00 price objective (down from $155.00) on shares of Fortinet in a research report on Thursday, October 29th. Finally, Weiss Ratings downgraded Fortinet from a “buy (b)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a research note on Tuesday, November 3rd. Eleven research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, twenty-four have assigned a Hold rating and six have issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $150.44.

Fortinet Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:FTNT opened at $123.57 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.22, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a current ratio of 1.40. The firm has a market cap of $90.79 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 40.12, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.35 and a beta of 1.04. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $166.24 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $129.96. Fortinet, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $73.55 and a fifty-two week high of $197.13.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 28th. The software maker reported $0.91 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.86 by $0.05. Fortinet had a net margin of 28.96% and a return on equity of 152.72%. The firm had revenue of $2.08 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.06 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $0.74 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 20.5% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts expect that Fortinet, Inc. will post 3.21 earnings per share for the current year.

About Fortinet

Fortinet, Inc. is a cybersecurity and networking company that provides products and services to help organizations protect their networks, devices, applications, and cloud environments. Its offerings include FortiGate next-generation firewalls, the FortiOS operating system, and security, endpoint, cloud, and secure access service edge (SASE) solutions. The company’s Security Fabric platform is designed to integrate security and networking products and support centralized visibility and management.