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

Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) has received a consensus recommendation of “Hold” from the thirty-two ratings firms that are covering the stock, MarketBeat Ratings reports. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, nineteen have assigned a hold recommendation, eleven have given a buy recommendation and one has assigned a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average 1-year target price among analysts that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $103.72.

FTNT has been the subject of several research analyst reports. Hsbc Global Res upgraded shares of Fortinet from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, November 11th. KeyCorp upgraded shares of Fortinet from a “sector weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $115.00 target price for the company in a report on Thursday, December 19th. Rosenblatt Securities increased their target price on shares of Fortinet from $115.00 to $125.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, February 7th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on shares of Fortinet from $99.00 to $105.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. Finally, Wedbush increased their target price on shares of Fortinet from $90.00 to $105.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, November 19th.

Fortinet Stock Down 0.4 %

Fortinet stock opened at $101.28 on Wednesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $77.88 billion, a PE ratio of 44.81, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.19 and a beta of 0.97. Fortinet has a twelve month low of $54.57 and a twelve month high of $114.82. The company has a quick ratio of 1.39, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.67. The company has a 50 day moving average of $102.06 and a 200-day moving average of $91.04.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 6th. The software maker reported $0.67 earnings per share 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, equities research analysts anticipate that Fortinet will post 2.09 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CFO Keith Jensen sold 23,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $113.56, for a total transaction of $2,668,660.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 4,736 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $537,820.16. This trade represents a 83.23 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, Director William H. Neukom purchased 328 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, March 6th. The shares were acquired at an average cost of $106.33 per share, for a total transaction of $34,876.24. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 300,006 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $31,899,637.98. This trade represents a 0.11 % increase in their position. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 87,120 shares of company stock valued at $8,991,409. 18.00% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Fortinet

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of FTNT. First Hawaiian Bank acquired a new stake in Fortinet during the fourth quarter worth about $670,000. LVM Capital Management Ltd. MI grew its stake in Fortinet by 10.7% during the fourth quarter. LVM Capital Management Ltd. MI now owns 89,827 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $8,487,000 after buying an additional 8,707 shares in the last quarter. Apollon Wealth Management LLC grew its stake in Fortinet by 7.6% during the third quarter. Apollon Wealth Management LLC now owns 15,296 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $1,186,000 after buying an additional 1,081 shares in the last quarter. Trilogy Capital Inc. grew its stake in Fortinet by 17.8% during the fourth quarter. Trilogy Capital Inc. now owns 23,499 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $2,220,000 after buying an additional 3,544 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Dixon Mitchell Investment Counsel Inc. grew its stake in Fortinet by 129.9% during the fourth quarter. Dixon Mitchell Investment Counsel Inc. now owns 299,989 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $28,343,000 after buying an additional 169,530 shares in the last quarter. 83.71% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

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.