FY2023 EPS Estimates for Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) Raised by Analyst

Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) – Research analysts at Cantor Fitzgerald increased their FY2023 earnings estimates for Fortinet in a research note issued on Friday, November 3rd. Cantor Fitzgerald analyst J. Ruykhaver now forecasts that the software maker will earn $1.28 per share for the year, up from their previous forecast of $1.23. Cantor Fitzgerald currently has a “Neutral” rating and a $50.00 target price on the stock. The consensus estimate for Fortinet’s current full-year earnings is $1.24 per share.

FTNT has been the topic of several other research reports. Citigroup reduced their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $73.00 to $70.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, August 29th. StockNews.com raised shares of Fortinet from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday. Jefferies Financial Group downgraded shares of Fortinet from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and cut their price target for the stock from $85.00 to $65.00 in a research note on Thursday, October 19th. Wells Fargo & Company cut their price target on shares of Fortinet from $90.00 to $85.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, August 4th. Finally, Evercore ISI reaffirmed an “inline” rating and set a $51.00 price target (down previously from $78.00) on shares of Fortinet in a research note on Friday. Seventeen investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nineteen have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $66.94.

Fortinet Stock Performance

Shares of FTNT opened at $50.48 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.09, a quick ratio of 1.29 and a current ratio of 1.39. The company has a market capitalization of $39.64 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 34.81, a PEG ratio of 2.54 and a beta of 1.14. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $59.09 and its 200 day simple moving average is $65.46. Fortinet has a 1 year low of $44.12 and a 1 year high of $81.24.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 2nd. The software maker reported $0.41 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.36 by $0.05. The business had revenue of $1.33 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.35 billion. Fortinet had a net margin of 21.24% and a negative return on equity of 698.28%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 15.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $0.28 earnings per share.

Institutional Trading of Fortinet

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in FTNT. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich increased its position in shares of Fortinet by 99,008.1% in the second quarter. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich now owns 213,366,900 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $16,128,404,000 after acquiring an additional 213,151,613 shares in the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 1.2% during the 1st quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 51,202,733 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $3,402,934,000 after buying an additional 617,369 shares during the period. Alliancebernstein L.P. boosted its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 2.1% during the 2nd quarter. Alliancebernstein L.P. now owns 28,859,057 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $2,181,456,000 after buying an additional 595,952 shares during the period. State Street Corp boosted its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 2.5% during the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 26,042,793 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $1,968,575,000 after buying an additional 647,200 shares during the period. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in Fortinet by 1.0% in the 1st quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 15,178,603 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $1,007,182,000 after purchasing an additional 147,048 shares during the period. 65.00% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CFO Keith Jensen sold 5,100 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $57.20, for a total value of $291,720.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 4,578 shares in the company, valued at approximately $261,861.60. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. In other news, Director William H. Neukom acquired 552 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, September 8th. The shares were purchased at an average cost of $63.28 per share, for a total transaction of $34,930.56. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 291,551 shares in the company, valued at approximately $18,449,347.28. The acquisition was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CFO Keith Jensen sold 5,100 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $57.20, for a total transaction of $291,720.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 4,578 shares in the company, valued at $261,861.60. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 61,333 shares of company stock valued at $3,505,054 in the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 17.54% of the company’s stock.

About Fortinet

Fortinet, Inc provides cybersecurity and networking solutions worldwide. It offers FortiGate hardware and software licenses that provide various security and networking functions, including firewall, intrusion prevention, anti-malware, virtual private network, application control, web filtering, anti-spam, and wide area network acceleration.