First Merchants Corp Raises Position in Fortinet, Inc. $FTNT

First Merchants Corp raised its position in shares of Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) by 4.5% during the 1st quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 99,272 shares of the software maker’s stock after acquiring an additional 4,233 shares during the period. First Merchants Corp’s holdings in Fortinet were worth $8,113,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. SG Americas Securities LLC raised its holdings in Fortinet by 60.2% in the first quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 1,390,542 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $113,635,000 after purchasing an additional 522,684 shares in the last quarter. Evolve Private Wealth LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 34.0% during the 1st quarter. Evolve Private Wealth LLC now owns 15,622 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $1,277,000 after buying an additional 3,967 shares in the last quarter. Quotient Wealth Partners LLC bought a new stake in shares of Fortinet during the 1st quarter valued at $233,000. AEGON ASSET MANAGEMENT UK Plc grew its position in shares of Fortinet by 3,003.0% in the 1st quarter. AEGON ASSET MANAGEMENT UK Plc now owns 259,004 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $21,166,000 after buying an additional 250,657 shares during the period. Finally, Bricktown Capital LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Fortinet in the 1st quarter worth about $752,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 83.71% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on FTNT. UBS Group lifted their price target on shares of Fortinet from $90.00 to $115.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 7th. Weiss Ratings upgraded shares of Fortinet from a “hold (c)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a report on Thursday, June 11th. Bank of America raised their target price on shares of Fortinet from $130.00 to $180.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, June 8th. BMO Capital Markets lifted their target price on shares of Fortinet from $95.00 to $100.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Monday, May 4th. Finally, Stephens set a $115.00 price target on Fortinet and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 7th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, six have assigned a Buy rating, twenty-five have assigned a Hold rating and four have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $107.77.

Fortinet Stock Performance

Shares of Fortinet stock opened at $144.73 on Monday. The stock has a market cap of $106.04 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 55.88, a PEG ratio of 3.96 and a beta of 1.11. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $116.11 and its 200 day moving average is $93.45. Fortinet, Inc. has a 1 year low of $70.12 and a 1 year high of $150.07. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.50, a current ratio of 1.15 and a quick ratio of 1.07.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, May 6th. The software maker reported $0.82 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.62 by $0.20. The business had revenue of $1.85 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.73 billion. Fortinet had a net margin of 27.49% and a return on equity of 160.08%. Fortinet’s revenue was up 20.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business earned $0.58 EPS. Fortinet has set its Q2 2026 guidance at 0.720-0.760 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 3.100-3.160 EPS. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Fortinet, Inc. will post 2.78 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity at Fortinet

In related news, CEO Ken Xie sold 160,632 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, June 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $145.58, for a total transaction of $23,384,806.56. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 52,972,372 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,711,717,915.76. This trade represents a 0.30% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, COO John Whittle sold 146,015 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, May 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $128.41, for a total transaction of $18,749,786.15. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer owned 94,724 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $12,163,508.84. The trade was a 60.65% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold 318,387 shares of company stock valued at $43,403,063 over the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 17.60% of the company’s stock.

Fortinet Profile

Fortinet, Inc (NASDAQ: FTNT) is a multinational cybersecurity company that develops and delivers integrated security solutions for enterprise, service provider and government customers worldwide. Founded in 2000 and headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, the company was co‑founded by Ken Xie and Michael Xie. Ken Xie serves as chairman and chief executive officer, and the company operates through a global sales, channel and services organization to support customers across the Americas, EMEA and Asia‑Pacific.

Fortinet’s product portfolio centers on network security appliances and software, with its FortiGate next‑generation firewalls and the FortiOS operating system forming a core platform.