Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) Earns “Neutral” Rating from Robert W. Baird

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT)‘s stock had its “neutral” rating reaffirmed by research analysts at Robert W. Baird in a research note issued on Monday, MarketBeat Ratings reports. They currently have a $112.00 price objective on the software maker’s stock, up from their prior price objective of $105.00. Robert W. Baird’s price objective suggests a potential upside of 8.97% from the stock’s current price.

A number of other research firms also recently weighed in on FTNT. Rosenblatt Securities raised their price target on Fortinet from $100.00 to $115.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 21st. KeyCorp upgraded Fortinet from a “sector weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $115.00 target price for the company in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. Truist Financial reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $105.00 price target (up from $85.00) on shares of Fortinet in a research report on Wednesday, November 20th. Piper Sandler upgraded shares of Fortinet from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $100.00 to $120.00 in a report on Monday, January 6th. Finally, TD Cowen increased their target price on shares of Fortinet from $90.00 to $105.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, November 19th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nineteen have assigned a hold rating, thirteen have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $97.73.

Fortinet Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ FTNT opened at $102.78 on Monday. The firm has a market capitalization of $78.78 billion, a P/E ratio of 51.91, a P/E/G ratio of 2.65 and a beta of 1.01. The company has a quick ratio of 1.25, a current ratio of 1.34 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.09. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $96.70 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $83.92. Fortinet has a twelve month low of $54.57 and a twelve month high of $102.87.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, November 7th. The software maker reported $0.56 earnings per share 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 business had revenue of $1.51 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.48 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $0.35 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Fortinet will post 1.95 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity

In other Fortinet news, CEO Ken Xie sold 23,044 shares of Fortinet stock in a transaction on Wednesday, January 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $93.32, for a total transaction of $2,150,466.08. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 49,039,698 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,576,384,617.36. The trade was a 0.05 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Keith Jensen sold 4,250 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $90.83, for a total value of $386,027.50. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 4,689 shares in the company, valued at approximately $425,901.87. This represents a 47.54 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 67,860 shares of company stock worth $6,469,056. Corporate insiders own 18.00% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Fortinet

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Eastern Bank purchased a new position in Fortinet in the third quarter worth about $25,000. Ashton Thomas Securities LLC purchased a new position in Fortinet in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $26,000. Private Wealth Management Group LLC lifted its position in Fortinet by 73.3% in the 3rd quarter. Private Wealth Management Group LLC now owns 409 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $32,000 after acquiring an additional 173 shares in the last quarter. City State Bank boosted its stake in Fortinet by 900.0% during the 3rd quarter. City State Bank now owns 500 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $39,000 after purchasing an additional 450 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Paladin Wealth LLC bought a new stake in shares of Fortinet in the 3rd quarter worth $46,000. Institutional investors own 83.71% of the company’s stock.

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.