Jefferies Financial Group Lowers Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) Price Target to $105.00

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) had its price objective decreased by equities research analysts at Jefferies Financial Group from $115.00 to $105.00 in a note issued to investors on Monday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has a “hold” rating on the software maker’s stock. Jefferies Financial Group’s price objective would indicate a potential upside of 8.62% from the stock’s current price.

Several other equities analysts have also recently issued reports on the company. Piper Sandler restated an “overweight” rating and issued a $135.00 price target (up previously from $120.00) on shares of Fortinet in a research report on Friday, February 7th. Cantor Fitzgerald boosted their target price on Fortinet from $95.00 to $110.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, February 4th. Morgan Stanley initiated coverage on Fortinet in a report on Tuesday, March 18th. They set an “overweight” rating and a $123.00 price target for the company. Mizuho boosted their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $68.00 to $78.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research note on Friday, December 13th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on shares of Fortinet from $99.00 to $105.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, twenty-one have given a hold rating, eleven have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $105.77.

Fortinet Stock Up 0.4 %

Shares of FTNT opened at $96.67 on Monday. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $103.00 and its 200 day moving average price is $93.68. Fortinet has a 12-month low of $54.57 and a 12-month high of $114.82. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.39 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.67. The firm has a market cap of $74.34 billion, a P/E ratio of 42.77, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.19 and a beta of 0.97.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 6th. The software maker reported $0.67 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.60 by $0.07. Fortinet had a return on equity of 256.53% and a net margin of 29.30%. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Fortinet will post 2.09 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity

In other Fortinet news, CEO Ken Xie sold 23,044 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, January 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $93.32, for a total value of $2,150,466.08. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 49,039,698 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,576,384,617.36. This represents a 0.05 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, Director William H. Neukom purchased 328 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, March 6th. The shares were purchased at an average price of $106.33 per share, with a total value of $34,876.24. Following the completion of the acquisition, the director now owns 300,006 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $31,899,637.98. This represents a 0.11 % increase in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. Insiders have sold 599,988 shares of company stock worth $59,094,530 over the last ninety days. 18.00% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Fortinet

Hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the company. FMR LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 276.3% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 3,685,230 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $285,790,000 after purchasing an additional 2,705,767 shares during the last quarter. Townsquare Capital LLC boosted its stake in Fortinet by 32.7% in the 3rd quarter. Townsquare Capital LLC now owns 11,082 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $859,000 after buying an additional 2,729 shares during the last quarter. Public Sector Pension Investment Board grew its holdings in Fortinet by 14.7% in the 3rd quarter. Public Sector Pension Investment Board now owns 25,760 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $1,998,000 after buying an additional 3,300 shares during the period. Captrust Financial Advisors increased its stake in shares of Fortinet by 21.0% during the 3rd quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 50,096 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $3,885,000 after acquiring an additional 8,708 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Erste Asset Management GmbH purchased a new position in shares of Fortinet during the 3rd quarter worth about $93,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.