Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) Upgraded to Strong-Buy at Stephens

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) was upgraded by equities research analysts at Stephens to a “strong-buy” rating in a note issued to investors on Monday,Zacks.com reports.

Several other research firms have also issued reports on FTNT. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their target price on Fortinet from $103.00 to $115.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, February 7th. Piper Sandler restated an “overweight” rating and set a $135.00 price objective (up previously from $120.00) on shares of Fortinet in a report on Friday, February 7th. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “hold” rating on shares of Fortinet in a report on Friday, February 7th. Susquehanna boosted their price target on shares of Fortinet from $90.00 to $110.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, February 10th. Finally, Robert W. Baird restated a “neutral” rating and issued a $112.00 price objective (up previously from $105.00) on shares of Fortinet in a research report on Monday, February 3rd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, twenty have given a hold rating, eleven have given a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Fortinet presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $105.77.

Fortinet Trading Up 0.4 %

FTNT opened at $96.67 on Monday. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $103.00 and a 200 day simple moving average of $93.68. Fortinet has a fifty-two week low of $54.57 and a fifty-two week high of $114.82. The company has a market cap of $74.34 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 42.77, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.19 and a beta of 0.97. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.67, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.39.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last issued its earnings results 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 net margin of 29.30% and a return on equity of 256.53%. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Fortinet will post 2.09 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Transactions at Fortinet

In other 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 transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 49,039,698 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,576,384,617.36. This trade represents a 0.05 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, CFO Keith Jensen sold 23,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $113.56, for a total value of $2,668,660.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 4,736 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $537,820.16. This trade represents a 83.23 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 599,988 shares of company stock worth $59,094,530. 18.00% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Fortinet

Hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in Fortinet by 1.1% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 68,115,470 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $6,435,550,000 after purchasing an additional 730,994 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its position in shares of Fortinet by 2.9% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,281,279 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $2,115,663,000 after acquiring an additional 766,135 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its stake in Fortinet by 2.6% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 15,270,913 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $1,440,648,000 after acquiring an additional 387,901 shares during the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. lifted its stake in Fortinet by 31.3% during the fourth quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 8,388,693 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $792,564,000 after purchasing an additional 2,000,888 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of Fortinet in the 4th quarter valued at $724,048,000. 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.