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

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) was upgraded by investment analysts at StockNews.com from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report issued on Sunday.

A number of other brokerages have also issued reports on FTNT. HSBC decreased their target price on shares of Fortinet from $57.00 to $54.00 and set a “reduce” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, May 3rd. Morgan Stanley decreased their target price on shares of Fortinet from $81.00 to $73.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, May 3rd. Guggenheim restated a “buy” rating and set a $81.00 price objective on shares of Fortinet in a research report on Tuesday, June 25th. Cantor Fitzgerald reduced their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $65.00 to $55.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, May 3rd. Finally, Scotiabank reduced their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $90.00 to $80.00 and set a “sector outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, May 3rd. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twenty have issued a hold rating and eleven have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $70.03.

Fortinet Stock Up 0.4 %

FTNT stock opened at $60.27 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.08, a current ratio of 1.20 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 13.38. Fortinet has a fifty-two week low of $44.12 and a fifty-two week high of $81.24. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $60.58 and its 200 day simple moving average is $63.72. The stock has a market cap of $46.04 billion, a PE ratio of 39.39, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.94 and a beta of 0.98.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, May 2nd. The software maker reported $0.43 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.38 by $0.05. The firm had revenue of $1.35 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.34 billion. Fortinet had a net margin of 22.23% and a negative return on equity of 2,235.48%. Fortinet’s revenue was up 7.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.29 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Fortinet will post 1.46 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity

In related news, CFO Keith Jensen sold 18,701 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, June 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $59.68, for a total value of $1,116,075.68. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 4,663 shares in the company, valued at $278,287.84. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. In related news, CEO Ken Xie sold 23,992 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, April 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $64.75, for a total value of $1,553,482.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 48,660,648 shares in the company, valued at $3,150,776,958. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CFO Keith Jensen sold 18,701 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, June 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $59.68, for a total transaction of $1,116,075.68. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 4,663 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $278,287.84. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 91,638 shares of company stock worth $5,705,568 in the last three months. 18.00% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Fortinet

Large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Vima LLC bought a new stake in Fortinet in the fourth quarter worth $25,000. Winthrop Capital Management LLC bought a new stake in Fortinet during the first quarter valued at about $25,000. Rise Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in Fortinet by 135.6% during the first quarter. Rise Advisors LLC now owns 377 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $26,000 after acquiring an additional 217 shares during the period. Headinvest LLC bought a new stake in Fortinet during the third quarter valued at about $29,000. Finally, Atwood & Palmer Inc. bought a new stake in Fortinet during the fourth quarter valued at about $29,000. 83.71% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Fortinet Company Profile

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.