Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) Stock Rating Lowered by StockNews.com

StockNews.com cut shares of Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note released on Thursday morning.

Several other analysts also recently issued reports on the company. Morgan Stanley decreased their price target on Fortinet from $73.00 to $69.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, July 17th. Robert W. Baird increased their target price on Fortinet from $75.00 to $80.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 7th. Mizuho downgraded Fortinet from a “neutral” rating to an “underperform” rating and set a $68.00 price target on the stock. in a research report on Thursday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price objective on Fortinet from $63.00 to $70.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 7th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada upped their target price on shares of Fortinet from $68.00 to $72.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 7th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, twenty-three have assigned a hold rating, nine have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $72.71.

Fortinet Trading Up 0.3 %

NASDAQ:FTNT opened at $81.07 on Thursday. The company has a market capitalization of $61.93 billion, a P/E ratio of 52.99, a P/E/G ratio of 2.84 and a beta of 1.00. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $76.78 and its 200 day moving average price is $66.65. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.45, a quick ratio of 1.22 and a current ratio of 1.32. Fortinet has a 52 week low of $44.12 and a 52 week high of $83.77.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, August 6th. The software maker reported $0.57 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.41 by $0.16. Fortinet had a net margin of 23.71% and a negative return on equity of 2,160.10%. The company had revenue of $1.43 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.40 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $0.31 EPS. Fortinet’s quarterly revenue was up 10.9% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts forecast that Fortinet will post 1.74 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Fortinet

In related news, CEO Ken Xie sold 23,693 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $73.06, for a total value of $1,731,010.58. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 48,842,522 shares in the company, valued at $3,568,434,657.32. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. In other Fortinet news, CEO Ken Xie sold 23,693 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $73.06, for a total transaction of $1,731,010.58. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 48,842,522 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,568,434,657.32. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, VP Michael Xie sold 24,712 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $56.11, for a total value of $1,386,590.32. Following the completion of the sale, the vice president now directly owns 10,847,018 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $608,626,179.98. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 95,250 shares of company stock worth $6,790,149 in the last quarter. 18.00% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Fortinet

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in Fortinet by 1.2% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 68,052,487 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $4,648,665,000 after buying an additional 779,271 shares during the period. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD increased its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 664.8% in the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 35,137,089 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $2,400,215,000 after acquiring an additional 30,542,551 shares in the last quarter. Swedbank AB raised its position in shares of Fortinet by 1.7% during the second quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 8,156,797 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $491,610,000 after purchasing an additional 134,366 shares during the period. Marshall Wace LLP lifted its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 198.5% during the 2nd quarter. Marshall Wace LLP now owns 6,238,856 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $376,016,000 after purchasing an additional 4,148,520 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Van ECK Associates Corp grew its position in shares of Fortinet by 94.9% in the 2nd quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 5,755,599 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $346,890,000 after purchasing an additional 2,802,446 shares during the period. 83.71% of the stock is 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.