Insider Selling: Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) CEO Sells $1,908,610.23 in Stock

Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) CEO Ken Xie sold 23,307 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, October 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $81.89, for a total value of $1,908,610.23. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 48,915,530 shares in the company, valued at $4,005,692,751.70. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website.

Ken Xie also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Wednesday, September 18th, Ken Xie sold 23,538 shares of Fortinet stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $74.94, for a total transaction of $1,763,937.72.
• On Wednesday, August 14th, Ken Xie sold 23,693 shares of Fortinet stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $73.06, for a total transaction of $1,731,010.58.

Fortinet Price Performance

Shares of Fortinet stock opened at $81.07 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $61.93 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 52.99, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.84 and a beta of 1.00. 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 stock has a 50 day moving average price of $76.78 and a 200-day moving average price of $66.66. Fortinet, Inc. has a one year low of $44.12 and a one year high of $83.77.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, August 6th. The software maker reported $0.57 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.41 by $0.16. The business had revenue of $1.43 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.40 billion. Fortinet had a net margin of 23.71% and a negative return on equity of 2,160.10%. The business’s revenue was up 10.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $0.31 earnings per share. Equities analysts expect that Fortinet, Inc. will post 1.74 EPS for the current year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. UBS Group boosted their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $69.00 to $70.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 7th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price target on Fortinet from $62.00 to $64.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 7th. Wedbush reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $78.00 price objective on shares of Fortinet in a research report on Wednesday, August 7th. TD Cowen boosted their price objective on Fortinet from $75.00 to $90.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 9th. Finally, StockNews.com cut shares of Fortinet from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, twenty-three have assigned a hold rating, nine have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $72.71.

Institutional Trading of Fortinet

Several institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. GAMMA Investing LLC raised its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 26.9% in the first quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 10,001 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $683,000 after buying an additional 2,118 shares during the period. Sarasin & Partners LLP increased its stake in Fortinet by 22.4% in the second quarter. Sarasin & Partners LLP now owns 2,163,093 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $130,370,000 after purchasing an additional 395,477 shares during the period. Banque Cantonale Vaudoise lifted its position in shares of Fortinet by 71.1% during the first quarter. Banque Cantonale Vaudoise now owns 72,384 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $4,945,000 after purchasing an additional 30,084 shares during the last quarter. PDS Planning Inc purchased a new stake in shares of Fortinet during the first quarter valued at $200,000. Finally, Cetera Investment Advisers grew its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 543.5% in the first quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers now owns 157,319 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $10,765,000 after purchasing an additional 132,871 shares during 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.