Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) Receives Consensus Recommendation of “Hold” from Analysts

Shares of Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) have been assigned an average recommendation of “Hold” from the thirty-two analysts that are covering the company, Marketbeat reports. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twenty have given a hold rating and ten have assigned a buy rating to the company. The average 1-year price objective among brokers that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $70.37.

A number of analysts have weighed in on the company. Evercore ISI reduced their target price on Fortinet from $72.00 to $67.00 and set an “in-line” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, May 3rd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their target price on shares of Fortinet from $67.00 to $63.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, May 3rd. Mizuho lowered their price target on Fortinet from $70.00 to $66.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Friday, May 3rd. Robert W. Baird cut their target price on Fortinet from $81.00 to $75.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, May 3rd. Finally, UBS Group raised their price target on shares of Fortinet from $55.00 to $65.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 10th.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Ken Xie sold 23,694 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $71.40, for a total transaction of $1,691,751.60. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 48,625,005 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,471,825,357. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. In other news, VP Michael Xie sold 24,710 shares of Fortinet stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, May 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $64.48, for a total value of $1,593,300.80. Following the completion of the sale, the vice president now directly owns 10,867,018 shares in the company, valued at $700,705,320.64. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Ken Xie sold 23,694 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $71.40, for a total value of $1,691,751.60. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 48,625,005 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,471,825,357. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 118,480 shares of company stock valued at $8,021,556. 17.54% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Bell Investment Advisors Inc increased its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 92.3% during the first quarter. Bell Investment Advisors Inc now owns 625 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $43,000 after acquiring an additional 300 shares in the last quarter. Baltimore Washington Financial Advisors Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Fortinet during the 1st quarter valued at $3,762,000. Motley Fool Asset Management LLC boosted its stake in Fortinet by 348.5% in the first quarter. Motley Fool Asset Management LLC now owns 103,996 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $7,104,000 after acquiring an additional 80,807 shares during the last quarter. Sheets Smith Wealth Management purchased a new stake in Fortinet in the first quarter worth $221,000. Finally, Bleakley Financial Group LLC raised its position in shares of Fortinet by 3.2% in the first quarter. Bleakley Financial Group LLC now owns 8,140 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $556,000 after purchasing an additional 252 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 83.71% of the company’s stock.

Fortinet Stock Up 0.3 %

Shares of FTNT stock opened at $59.63 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 13.38, a current ratio of 1.20 and a quick ratio of 1.08. Fortinet has a one year low of $44.12 and a one year high of $81.24. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $66.93 and its 200-day moving average price is $61.97. The company has a market capitalization of $45.52 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 38.97, a PEG ratio of 2.60 and a beta of 1.08.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 2nd. The software maker reported $0.43 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.38 by $0.05. The business had revenue of $1.35 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.34 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 7.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $0.29 EPS. Sell-side analysts expect that Fortinet will post 1.4 EPS for the current fiscal 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.