Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) Upgraded at Stephens

Stephens upgraded shares of Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) to a strong-buy rating in a research note issued to investors on Monday morning,Zacks.com reports.

Several other equities analysts also recently weighed in on FTNT. Citigroup raised their target price on shares of Fortinet from $100.00 to $101.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, January 17th. Guggenheim reissued a “neutral” rating on shares of Fortinet in a research note on Friday, February 7th. Morgan Stanley began coverage on shares of Fortinet in a report on Tuesday, March 18th. They set an “overweight” rating and a $123.00 price target for the company. Scotiabank upped their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $115.00 to $135.00 and gave the company a “sector outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, February 7th. Finally, KeyCorp raised shares of Fortinet from a “sector weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $115.00 target price for the company in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, twenty have issued a hold rating, eleven have given a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $105.77.

Fortinet Stock Up 1.5 %

FTNT opened at $98.08 on Monday. Fortinet has a 52 week low of $54.57 and a 52 week high of $114.82. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $102.99 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $93.71. 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 market cap of $75.42 billion, a PE ratio of 43.40, a P/E/G ratio of 4.19 and a beta of 0.97.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 6th. The software maker reported $0.67 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.60 by $0.07. Fortinet had a net margin of 29.30% and a return on equity of 256.53%. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Fortinet will post 2.09 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Fortinet

In other news, Director William H. Neukom acquired 328 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 6th. The stock was bought at an average cost of $106.33 per share, with a total value of $34,876.24. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 300,006 shares in the company, valued at approximately $31,899,637.98. This represents a 0.11 % increase in their position. The acquisition was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Ken Xie sold 23,044 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, January 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $93.32, for a total value of $2,150,466.08. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 49,039,698 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,576,384,617.36. This represents a 0.05 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 599,988 shares of company stock valued at $59,094,530 over the last 90 days. 18.00% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Fortinet

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. First Hawaiian Bank bought a new position in Fortinet during the 4th quarter valued at $670,000. LVM Capital Management Ltd. MI grew its position in shares of Fortinet by 10.7% in the 4th quarter. LVM Capital Management Ltd. MI now owns 89,827 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $8,487,000 after acquiring an additional 8,707 shares in the last quarter. Trilogy Capital Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 17.8% in the 4th quarter. Trilogy Capital Inc. now owns 23,499 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $2,220,000 after acquiring an additional 3,544 shares during the last quarter. Dixon Mitchell Investment Counsel Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 129.9% in the 4th quarter. Dixon Mitchell Investment Counsel Inc. now owns 299,989 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $28,343,000 after acquiring an additional 169,530 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Quadrature Capital Ltd acquired a new stake in shares of Fortinet during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $10,343,000. 83.71% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.