Analysts Set Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) PT at $97.03

Shares of Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) have been assigned a consensus rating of “Hold” from the thirty-eight research firms that are currently covering the firm, Marketbeat Ratings reports. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell recommendation, twenty-six have assigned a hold recommendation, eight have issued a buy recommendation and two have issued a strong buy recommendation on the company. The average 12 month price target among brokerages that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $97.0333.

A number of equities research analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Evercore ISI cut their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $105.00 to $78.00 and set an “in-line” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, August 8th. Wells Fargo & Company dropped their price target on shares of Fortinet from $110.00 to $85.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, August 7th. Erste Group Bank cut shares of Fortinet from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 14th. Morgan Stanley reiterated an “underweight” rating and issued a $67.00 price target (down from $78.00) on shares of Fortinet in a research report on Tuesday, September 2nd. Finally, Mizuho dropped their price target on shares of Fortinet from $87.00 to $75.00 and set an “underperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, August 7th.

Insider Activity

In other Fortinet 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 sale, the chief executive officer directly 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 ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, VP Michael Xie sold 476,596 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $98.48, for a total value of $46,935,174.08. Following the sale, the vice president owned 9,730,560 shares in the company, valued at approximately $958,265,548.80. The trade was a 4.67% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 17.20% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Fortinet

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Dover Advisors LLC raised its holdings in Fortinet by 1.0% during the 2nd quarter. Dover Advisors LLC now owns 9,451 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $999,000 after buying an additional 94 shares during the period. Balboa Wealth Partners raised its holdings in Fortinet by 4.3% during the 2nd quarter. Balboa Wealth Partners now owns 2,330 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $246,000 after buying an additional 96 shares during the period. Hemington Wealth Management raised its holdings in Fortinet by 13.2% during the 2nd quarter. Hemington Wealth Management now owns 851 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $89,000 after buying an additional 99 shares during the period. Peloton Wealth Strategists raised its holdings in Fortinet by 2.4% during the 1st quarter. Peloton Wealth Strategists now owns 4,330 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $417,000 after buying an additional 100 shares during the period. Finally, Trust Co. of Vermont raised its holdings in Fortinet by 3.6% during the 2nd quarter. Trust Co. of Vermont now owns 2,852 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $302,000 after buying an additional 100 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 83.71% of the company’s stock.

Fortinet Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ FTNT opened at $83.44 on Thursday. Fortinet has a fifty-two week low of $70.12 and a fifty-two week high of $114.82. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $81.25 and its 200 day simple moving average is $94.07. 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 has a market cap of $63.94 billion, a P/E ratio of 33.24, a P/E/G ratio of 3.14 and a beta of 1.09.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 6th. The software maker reported $0.64 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.59 by $0.05. Fortinet had a net margin of 30.60% and a return on equity of 111.46%. The business had revenue of $1.63 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.63 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.57 earnings per share. The company’s revenue was up 13.6% on a year-over-year basis. Equities analysts expect that Fortinet will post 2.09 EPS for the current year.

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.