Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) Hits New 12-Month High – What’s Next?

Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) shares hit a new 52-week high during trading on Tuesday . The stock traded as high as $177.25 and last traded at $174.4260, with a volume of 19005 shares. The stock had previously closed at $175.23.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts recently issued reports on FTNT shares. Scotiabank reaffirmed a “sector perform” rating and issued a $163.00 price objective on shares of Fortinet in a research note on Thursday, July 30th. Citigroup raised their target price on Fortinet from $165.00 to $185.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, July 30th. DZ Bank cut Fortinet from a “hold” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 30th. Bank of America reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of Fortinet in a research note on Monday, July 27th. Finally, Mizuho set a $125.00 price target on shares of Fortinet and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 15th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, ten have issued a Buy rating, nineteen have issued a Hold rating and five have assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $152.79.

Fortinet Price Performance

The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $160.43 and a 200 day simple moving average of $129.93. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32, a quick ratio of 1.19 and a current ratio of 1.28. The company has a market cap of $125.97 billion, a P/E ratio of 60.18, a P/E/G ratio of 3.20 and a beta of 1.06.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, July 29th. The software maker reported $0.90 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.75 by $0.15. The business had revenue of $2.05 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.89 billion. Fortinet had a net margin of 28.17% and a return on equity of 191.54%. The firm’s revenue was up 25.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.64 EPS. Fortinet has set its FY 2026 guidance at 3.410-3.470 EPS and its Q3 2026 guidance at 0.830-0.870 EPS. On average, equities analysts expect that Fortinet, Inc. will post 3.07 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Fortinet

In other Fortinet news, COO John Whittle sold 2,835 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $168.74, for a total value of $478,377.90. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer directly owned 96,987 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $16,365,586.38. This trade represents a 2.84% 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 the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Ken Xie sold 161,482 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, August 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $162.66, for a total transaction of $26,266,662.12. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 52,972,372 shares in the company, valued at approximately $8,616,486,029.52. This trade represents a 0.30% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 221,303 shares of company stock worth $36,164,034. 17.60% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in FTNT. BlackRock Inc. bought a new stake in Fortinet during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $9,561,650,000. Bank of New York Mellon Corp bought a new stake in shares of Fortinet during the second quarter worth $1,432,842,000. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Fortinet during the fourth quarter worth $1,152,917,000. Legal & General Group Plc acquired a new stake in shares of Fortinet during the second quarter worth $979,062,000. Finally, First Trust Advisors LP lifted its position in Fortinet by 45.5% in the 1st quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 11,506,173 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $940,284,000 after acquiring an additional 3,598,487 shares in the last quarter. 83.71% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Fortinet

Fortinet, Inc develops cybersecurity products and services designed to protect enterprise, small and midsize business, service provider, and government networks. Its portfolio covers network security, endpoint protection, cloud security, secure access service edge (SASE), security operations, and zero-trust access.

The company’s offerings include FortiGate next-generation firewalls, FortiSwitch secure networking switches, FortiAP wireless access points, FortiClient endpoint security, and FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer management and analytics tools.