Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) Raised to “Buy” at StockNews.com

StockNews.com upgraded shares of Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report released on Tuesday morning.

A number of other equities research analysts have also recently weighed in on FTNT. Jefferies Financial Group dropped their price target on Fortinet from $115.00 to $105.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, March 31st. DZ Bank raised shares of Fortinet from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 8th. Wolfe Research assumed coverage on shares of Fortinet in a research note on Monday, May 12th. They set a “peer perform” rating for the company. Stifel Nicolaus decreased their price target on shares of Fortinet from $115.00 to $95.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, May 8th. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities raised their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $115.00 to $125.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, February 7th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, twenty have issued a hold rating, twelve have assigned a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $104.80.

Fortinet Stock Up 0.0%

Shares of FTNT stock opened at $104.79 on Tuesday. Fortinet has a 52-week low of $54.57 and a 52-week high of $114.82. The stock has a market cap of $80.21 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 46.37, a PEG ratio of 4.19 and a beta of 1.16. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $98.89 and its 200-day moving average is $98.65. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.67, a quick ratio of 1.39 and a current ratio of 1.47.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, May 7th. The software maker reported $0.58 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.53 by $0.05. Fortinet had a return on equity of 256.53% and a net margin of 29.30%. The firm had revenue of $1.54 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.54 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $0.43 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 13.8% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts predict that Fortinet will post 2.09 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Fortinet

In other news, VP Michael Xie sold 326,784 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $98.17, for a total value of $32,080,385.28. Following the sale, the vice president now directly owns 11,000,068 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,079,876,675.56. This trade represents a 2.89% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Ken Xie sold 206,000 shares of Fortinet stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, March 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $96.93, for a total transaction of $19,967,580.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 51,391,879 shares in the company, valued at $4,981,414,831.47. This trade represents a 0.40% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 715,478 shares of company stock worth $71,467,247 over the last three months. Corporate insiders own 17.20% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Fortinet

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in FTNT. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Fortinet during the fourth quarter worth $724,048,000. Schroder Investment Management Group acquired a new stake in shares of Fortinet during the 4th quarter valued at $389,867,000. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in Fortinet by 5.2% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 71,662,404 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $6,898,223,000 after acquiring an additional 3,546,934 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC increased its holdings in Fortinet by 77.2% in the 4th quarter. FMR LLC now owns 6,531,705 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $617,115,000 after purchasing an additional 2,846,475 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership increased its holdings in Fortinet by 39.3% in the 4th quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 7,622,253 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $720,150,000 after purchasing an additional 2,151,811 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 83.71% of the company’s stock.

About Fortinet

Fortinet, Inc provides cybersecurity and convergence of networking and security solutions worldwide. It offers secure networking solutions focus on the convergence of networking and security; network firewall solutions that consist of FortiGate data centers, hyperscale, and distributed firewalls, as well as encrypted applications; wireless LAN solutions; and secure connectivity solutions, including FortiSwitch secure ethernet switches, FortiAP wireless local area network access points, FortiExtender 5G connectivity gateways, and other products.