Citizens Financial Group Inc. RI Raises Holdings in Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT)

Citizens Financial Group Inc. RI boosted its stake in shares of Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) by 38.1% in the 2nd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 22,468 shares of the software maker’s stock after buying an additional 6,193 shares during the period. Citizens Financial Group Inc. RI’s holdings in Fortinet were worth $1,354,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Financial Advocates Investment Management purchased a new stake in Fortinet during the fourth quarter worth $261,000. Brown Advisory Inc. grew its position in shares of Fortinet by 1.6% during the 4th quarter. Brown Advisory Inc. now owns 127,919 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $7,487,000 after acquiring an additional 1,964 shares during the period. Norges Bank purchased a new position in shares of Fortinet in the 4th quarter valued at about $203,501,000. Balentine LLC acquired a new position in Fortinet in the 4th quarter worth about $206,000. Finally, Clearbridge Investments LLC boosted its position in Fortinet by 0.3% during the fourth quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 1,385,125 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $81,071,000 after purchasing an additional 4,423 shares in the last quarter. 83.71% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research analysts have recently weighed in on FTNT shares. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upped their target price on Fortinet from $71.00 to $75.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 7th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $62.00 to $64.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 7th. DZ Bank upgraded shares of Fortinet from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating and set a $65.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Thursday, August 8th. Wedbush restated an “outperform” rating and set a $78.00 price target on shares of Fortinet in a research report on Wednesday, August 7th. Finally, Piper Sandler raised shares of Fortinet from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 7th. Twenty-three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, ten have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Fortinet currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $71.57.

Fortinet Trading Down 1.0 %

FTNT opened at $75.61 on Wednesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $57.76 billion, a PE ratio of 49.42, a P/E/G ratio of 2.77 and a beta of 1.00. Fortinet, Inc. has a one year low of $44.12 and a one year high of $78.08. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.45, a quick ratio of 1.22 and a current ratio of 1.32. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $67.59 and its 200 day moving average price is $65.03.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, August 6th. The software maker reported $0.57 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.41 by $0.16. The business had revenue of $1.43 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.40 billion. Fortinet had a negative return on equity of 2,160.10% and a net margin of 23.71%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 10.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $0.31 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Fortinet, Inc. will post 1.7 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Fortinet news, VP Michael Xie sold 24,712 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $56.11, for a total value of $1,386,590.32. Following the sale, the vice president now owns 10,847,018 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $608,626,179.98. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other Fortinet news, VP Michael Xie sold 24,712 shares of Fortinet stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $56.11, for a total value of $1,386,590.32. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now directly owns 10,847,018 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $608,626,179.98. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Ken Xie sold 24,267 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, July 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $60.01, for a total transaction of $1,456,262.67. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 48,777,294 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,927,125,412.94. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 72,672 shares of company stock valued at $4,573,864. Company insiders own 18.00% 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.