Ken Xie Sells 206,000 Shares of Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) Stock

Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) CEO Ken Xie sold 206,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, March 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $96.93, for a total transaction of $19,967,580.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 51,391,879 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,981,414,831.47. The trade was a 0.40 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website.

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

• On Wednesday, January 15th, Ken Xie sold 23,044 shares of Fortinet stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $93.32, for a total transaction of $2,150,466.08.
• On Tuesday, December 17th, Ken Xie sold 22,916 shares of Fortinet stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $97.93, for a total transaction of $2,244,163.88.

Fortinet Price Performance

NASDAQ FTNT opened at $98.28 on Wednesday. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $102.15 and a 200 day simple moving average of $91.36. Fortinet, Inc. has a 52-week low of $54.57 and a 52-week high of $114.82. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.67, a quick ratio of 1.39 and a current ratio of 1.47. The stock has a market cap of $75.57 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 43.49, a PEG ratio of 4.19 and a beta of 0.97.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 6th. The software maker reported $0.67 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.60 by $0.07. Fortinet had a return on equity of 256.53% and a net margin of 29.30%. Analysts anticipate that Fortinet, Inc. will post 2.09 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Fortinet

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Edmond DE Rothschild Holding S.A. bought a new position in shares of Fortinet in the fourth quarter worth $27,000. Ashton Thomas Securities LLC bought a new stake in shares of Fortinet during the third quarter worth about $26,000. Oarsman Capital Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Fortinet by 188.9% in the fourth quarter. Oarsman Capital Inc. now owns 416 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $39,000 after acquiring an additional 272 shares during the period. Graney & King LLC acquired a new position in shares of Fortinet in the fourth quarter worth approximately $43,000. Finally, Banque Transatlantique SA acquired a new position in shares of Fortinet in the fourth quarter worth approximately $43,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 83.71% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages recently weighed in on FTNT. Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $105.00 to $106.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, November 19th. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $88.00 to $100.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, November 19th. TD Cowen lifted their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $90.00 to $105.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, November 19th. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $85.00 to $105.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, February 7th. Finally, KeyCorp upgraded shares of Fortinet from a “sector weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $115.00 price objective on the stock in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, twenty have assigned a hold rating, eleven have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $103.72.

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.