Dimensional Fund Advisors LP Increases Stock Position in Fortinet, Inc. $FTNT

Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its stake in shares of Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) by 6.6% in the 1st quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 2,784,746 shares of the software maker’s stock after acquiring an additional 173,285 shares during the period. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP’s holdings in Fortinet were worth $268,044,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Eagle Capital Management LLC increased its stake in Fortinet by 1.6% in the 4th quarter. Eagle Capital Management LLC now owns 26,176 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $2,473,000 after acquiring an additional 404 shares during the last quarter. Brighton Jones LLC grew its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 2.2% in the fourth quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 10,327 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $976,000 after purchasing an additional 221 shares in the last quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC increased its position in Fortinet by 50.5% in the fourth quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC now owns 31,481 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $2,974,000 after purchasing an additional 10,562 shares during the last quarter. Farringdon Capital Ltd. purchased a new stake in Fortinet during the fourth quarter valued at $202,000. Finally, Freedom Investment Management Inc. lifted its position in Fortinet by 22.1% during the fourth quarter. Freedom Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,751 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $449,000 after purchasing an additional 861 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 83.71% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities analysts have commented on the stock. Mizuho dropped their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $87.00 to $75.00 and set an “underperform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, August 7th. Stifel Nicolaus reduced their price objective on Fortinet from $95.00 to $85.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, August 7th. Roth Capital set a $103.00 price objective on Fortinet and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, April 22nd. Scotiabank dropped their target price on Fortinet from $115.00 to $85.00 and set a “sector outperform” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, August 7th. Finally, Erste Group Bank downgraded Fortinet from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twenty-six have issued a hold rating, eight have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $97.93.

Fortinet Trading Up 2.4%

FTNT opened at $79.11 on Monday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.24, a current ratio of 1.33 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $99.22 and its two-hundred day moving average is $100.91. The company has a market capitalization of $60.62 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.52, a PEG ratio of 3.00 and a beta of 1.07. Fortinet, Inc. has a 52 week low of $70.12 and a 52 week high of $114.82.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 6th. The software maker reported $0.64 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.59 by $0.05. The business had revenue of $1.63 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.63 billion. Fortinet had a return on equity of 111.46% and a net margin of 30.60%. The business’s revenue was up 13.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $0.57 EPS. Analysts forecast that Fortinet, Inc. will post 2.09 earnings per share for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Ken Xie sold 158,486 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $98.48, for a total value of $15,607,701.28. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 51,391,879 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,061,072,243.92. The trade was a 0.31% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, VP Michael Xie sold 476,596 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $98.48, for a total transaction of $46,935,174.08. Following the transaction, the vice president owned 9,730,560 shares in the company, valued at approximately $958,265,548.80. This represents a 4.67% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 18.00% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

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.