Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) Hits New 52-Week High Following Analyst Upgrade

Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) shares reached a new 52-week high during trading on Wednesday after Cantor Fitzgerald raised their price target on the stock from $95.00 to $110.00. Cantor Fitzgerald currently has a neutral rating on the stock. Fortinet traded as high as $103.69 and last traded at $102.60, with a volume of 311009 shares trading hands. The stock had previously closed at $102.78.

FTNT has been the topic of a number of other research reports. UBS Group increased their price target on shares of Fortinet from $70.00 to $83.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, November 8th. Barclays lifted their target price on Fortinet from $85.00 to $95.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, November 8th. Guggenheim reiterated a “neutral” rating on shares of Fortinet in a report on Friday, January 24th. Raymond James restated a “market perform” rating on shares of Fortinet in a report on Tuesday, January 14th. Finally, KeyCorp raised shares of Fortinet from a “sector weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $115.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nineteen have assigned a hold rating, thirteen have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $97.73.

Insider Activity at Fortinet

In other news, CEO Ken Xie sold 22,916 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, December 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $97.93, for a total value of $2,244,163.88. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 48,983,683 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,796,972,076.19. This represents a 0.05 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, Director William H. Neukom acquired 355 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, December 6th. The shares were bought at an average price of $98.50 per share, for a total transaction of $34,967.50. Following the purchase, the director now directly owns 150,245 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $14,799,132.50. This trade represents a 0.24 % increase in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 67,860 shares of company stock worth $6,469,056 in the last ninety days. 18.00% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Norden Group LLC acquired a new stake in Fortinet in the 4th quarter valued at about $4,216,000. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC increased its stake in Fortinet by 35.1% in the 4th quarter. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC now owns 3,907 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $372,000 after purchasing an additional 1,014 shares in the last quarter. Chase Investment Counsel Corp purchased a new stake in Fortinet during the fourth quarter valued at about $1,030,000. Metis Global Partners LLC raised its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 4.6% during the fourth quarter. Metis Global Partners LLC now owns 26,699 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $2,523,000 after acquiring an additional 1,178 shares during the period. Finally, SVB Wealth LLC acquired a new position in Fortinet in the 4th quarter worth approximately $1,437,000. Institutional investors own 83.71% of the company’s stock.

Fortinet Stock Performance

The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $96.92 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $84.07. The company has a current ratio of 1.34, a quick ratio of 1.25 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.09. The stock has a market capitalization of $80.53 billion, a PE ratio of 53.07, a PEG ratio of 2.65 and a beta of 1.01.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 7th. The software maker reported $0.56 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.43 by $0.13. Fortinet had a net margin of 26.79% and a return on equity of 973.30%. The firm had revenue of $1.51 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.48 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.35 earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts expect that Fortinet, Inc. will post 1.95 earnings per share 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.