Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) Upgraded to Buy at StockNews.com

StockNews.com upgraded shares of Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report issued on Wednesday morning.

Several other research analysts have also issued reports on FTNT. Rosenblatt Securities reiterated a buy rating and issued a $85.00 target price on shares of Fortinet in a research report on Wednesday, April 3rd. Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price on shares of Fortinet from $65.00 to $70.00 and gave the stock an equal weight rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 7th. Wedbush upped their target price on shares of Fortinet from $75.00 to $86.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 7th. Stifel Nicolaus upped their price target on shares of Fortinet from $52.00 to $78.00 and gave the company a hold rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 7th. Finally, HSBC lowered shares of Fortinet from a hold rating to a reduce rating and set a $57.00 price target for the company. in a research report on Wednesday, February 7th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twenty have assigned a hold rating and twelve have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $72.35.

Fortinet Stock Down 0.1 %

FTNT opened at $68.13 on Wednesday. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $68.88 and a 200-day moving average price of $61.24. The firm has a market capitalization of $51.99 billion, a P/E ratio of 46.99, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.04 and a beta of 1.08. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 13.38, a current ratio of 1.19 and a quick ratio of 1.06. Fortinet has a one year low of $44.12 and a one year high of $81.24.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last released its quarterly earnings results on Monday, February 5th. The software maker reported $0.51 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.43 by $0.08. Fortinet had a net margin of 21.64% and a negative return on equity of 7,572.46%. The firm had revenue of $1.42 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.41 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.38 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 10.3% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts expect that Fortinet will post 1.39 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity

In other news, VP Michael Xie sold 38,369 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $66.45, for a total transaction of $2,549,620.05. Following the sale, the vice president now owns 29,887,018 shares in the company, valued at $1,985,992,346.10. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. In related news, VP Michael Xie sold 38,369 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $66.45, for a total value of $2,549,620.05. Following the sale, the vice president now owns 29,887,018 shares in the company, valued at $1,985,992,346.10. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Ken Xie sold 23,694 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $71.40, for a total transaction of $1,691,751.60. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 48,625,005 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,471,825,357. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 108,147 shares of company stock worth $7,424,394 over the last 90 days. 17.54% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Fortinet

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in FTNT. Vima LLC bought a new stake in shares of Fortinet during the 4th quarter valued at $25,000. Rise Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of Fortinet by 135.6% during the 1st quarter. Rise Advisors LLC now owns 377 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $26,000 after acquiring an additional 217 shares during the period. Headinvest LLC bought a new stake in shares of Fortinet during the 3rd quarter valued at $29,000. Atwood & Palmer Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Fortinet during the 4th quarter valued at $29,000. Finally, Retirement Group LLC bought a new stake in shares of Fortinet during the 4th quarter valued at $30,000. Hedge funds and other 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.