Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) Trading 0.5% Higher

Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT)’s stock price shot up 0.5% during mid-day trading on Friday . The company traded as high as $76.91 and last traded at $76.64. 279,516 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 95% from the average session volume of 5,757,815 shares. The stock had previously closed at $76.27.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

FTNT has been the subject of a number of research reports. UBS Group boosted their price target on shares of Fortinet from $69.00 to $70.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 7th. Citigroup increased their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $65.00 to $66.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 7th. Truist Financial cut their price target on Fortinet from $80.00 to $70.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, May 3rd. Royal Bank of Canada upped their target price on shares of Fortinet from $68.00 to $72.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 7th. Finally, DZ Bank upgraded shares of Fortinet from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating and set a $65.00 price objective on the stock in a research report on Thursday, August 8th. Twenty-four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, nine have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Fortinet currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $71.31.

Fortinet Price Performance

The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $63.70 and a 200 day moving average price of $64.48. The firm has a market cap of $58.59 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 49.91, a PEG ratio of 2.79 and a beta of 0.98.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, August 6th. The software maker reported $0.57 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.41 by $0.16. The firm had revenue of $1.43 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.40 billion. Fortinet had a negative return on equity of 2,235.48% and a net margin of 22.23%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 10.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.31 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Fortinet, Inc. will post 1.47 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity

In other news, Director William H. Neukom purchased 586 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, June 6th. The stock was bought at an average cost of $59.55 per share, for a total transaction of $34,896.30. Following the completion of the purchase, the director now directly owns 295,778 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $17,613,579.90. The purchase was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. In other Fortinet news, Director William H. Neukom purchased 586 shares of Fortinet stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, June 6th. The stock was purchased at an average price of $59.55 per share, with a total value of $34,896.30. Following the completion of the acquisition, the director now owns 295,778 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $17,613,579.90. The purchase was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CFO Keith Jensen sold 18,701 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, June 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $59.68, for a total value of $1,116,075.68. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 4,663 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $278,287.84. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 115,608 shares of company stock worth $7,132,649 over the last three months. 18.00% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Fortinet

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in FTNT. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in Fortinet by 1.2% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 68,052,487 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $4,648,665,000 after acquiring an additional 779,271 shares during the period. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD increased its position in Fortinet by 664.8% in the 1st quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 35,137,089 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $2,400,215,000 after acquiring an additional 30,542,551 shares during the period. Swedbank AB increased its position in Fortinet by 1.7% in the 2nd quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 8,156,797 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $491,610,000 after acquiring an additional 134,366 shares during the period. Marshall Wace LLP increased its position in Fortinet by 198.5% in the 2nd quarter. Marshall Wace LLP now owns 6,238,856 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $376,016,000 after acquiring an additional 4,148,520 shares during the period. Finally, Van ECK Associates Corp increased its position in shares of Fortinet by 94.9% during the 2nd quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 5,755,599 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $346,890,000 after purchasing an additional 2,802,446 shares during the period. 83.71% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.