Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) Rating Lowered to Hold at Baird R W

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) was downgraded by research analysts at Baird R W from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report issued to clients and investors on Monday,Zacks.com reports.

Several other brokerages have also recently issued reports on FTNT. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upped their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $77.00 to $90.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, November 19th. Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a “hold” rating on shares of Fortinet in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Rosenblatt Securities lifted their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $100.00 to $115.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 21st. Mizuho boosted their target price on Fortinet from $68.00 to $78.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a research report on Friday, December 13th. Finally, Scotiabank raised their price objective on Fortinet from $110.00 to $115.00 and gave the company a “sector outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 21st. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nineteen have given a hold rating, thirteen have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $97.23.

Fortinet Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ FTNT opened at $100.90 on Monday. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $96.57 and a 200 day simple moving average of $83.61. Fortinet has a twelve month low of $54.57 and a twelve month high of $102.87. The company has a quick ratio of 1.25, a current ratio of 1.34 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.09. The company has a market capitalization of $77.34 billion, a PE ratio of 50.96, a P/E/G ratio of 2.65 and a beta of 1.00.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 7th. The software maker reported $0.56 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.43 by $0.13. Fortinet had a net margin of 26.79% and a return on equity of 973.30%. The firm had revenue of $1.51 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.48 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $0.35 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Fortinet will post 1.95 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Ken Xie sold 23,044 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, January 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $93.32, for a total transaction of $2,150,466.08. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 49,039,698 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,576,384,617.36. This represents a 0.05 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CFO Keith Jensen sold 17,650 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $95.66, for a total value of $1,688,399.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 4,689 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $448,549.74. This represents a 79.01 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 67,860 shares of company stock valued at $6,469,056 over the last 90 days. 18.00% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Fortinet

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of FTNT. Bell Bank lifted its holdings in Fortinet by 2.5% during the fourth quarter. Bell Bank now owns 8,916 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $842,000 after purchasing an additional 220 shares in the last quarter. Crumly & Associates Inc. purchased a new stake in Fortinet during the 4th quarter worth about $256,000. Cassaday & Co Wealth Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 119.7% in the 4th quarter. Cassaday & Co Wealth Management LLC now owns 7,300 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $690,000 after purchasing an additional 3,978 shares in the last quarter. Arcadia Investment Management Corp MI purchased a new position in shares of Fortinet in the 4th quarter valued at about $94,000. Finally, Handelsbanken Fonder AB lifted its position in shares of Fortinet by 21.3% during the 4th quarter. Handelsbanken Fonder AB now owns 237,404 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $22,430,000 after buying an additional 41,609 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 83.71% of the company’s stock.

About Fortinet

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.