Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) Price Target Cut to $80.00

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) had its target price reduced by Scotiabank from $90.00 to $80.00 in a research note issued to investors on Friday, Benzinga reports. Scotiabank currently has a sector outperform rating on the software maker’s stock.

A number of other research analysts have also recently commented on FTNT. Barclays reduced their target price on shares of Fortinet from $80.00 to $75.00 and set an equal weight rating on the stock in a research report on Friday. Citigroup cut shares of Fortinet from a buy rating to a neutral rating and upped their price objective for the company from $60.00 to $62.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 9th. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their target price on Fortinet from $52.00 to $78.00 and gave the stock a hold rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 7th. DZ Bank downgraded Fortinet from a hold rating to a sell rating and set a $60.00 price target for the company. in a report on Thursday, February 8th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada cut their target price on Fortinet from $71.00 to $68.00 and set a sector perform rating on the stock in a research report on Friday. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twenty have issued a hold rating and twelve have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Fortinet currently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average target price of $70.37.

Fortinet Price Performance

Shares of Fortinet stock opened at $58.81 on Friday. Fortinet has a twelve month low of $44.12 and a twelve month high of $81.24. The stock has a market capitalization of $44.89 billion, a P/E ratio of 38.44, a PEG ratio of 2.60 and a beta of 1.08. The company has a current ratio of 1.20, a quick ratio of 1.08 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 13.38. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $67.34 and its 200 day moving average price is $61.96.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, May 2nd. The software maker reported $0.43 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.38 by $0.05. The business had revenue of $1.35 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.34 billion. Fortinet had a negative return on equity of 2,235.48% and a net margin of 22.23%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $0.29 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Fortinet will post 1.4 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Ken Xie sold 46,084 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $69.07, for a total transaction of $3,183,021.88. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 51,813,638 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,578,767,976.66. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. In related news, VP Michael Xie sold 24,710 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $64.48, for a total value of $1,593,300.80. Following the completion of the sale, the vice president now owns 10,867,018 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $700,705,320.64. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ken Xie sold 46,084 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $69.07, for a total transaction of $3,183,021.88. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 51,813,638 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,578,767,976.66. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 118,480 shares of company stock valued at $8,021,556. 17.54% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Fortinet

Institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Nordea Investment Management AB lifted its holdings in Fortinet by 156.8% in the 3rd quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 9,441,059 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $554,945,000 after acquiring an additional 5,765,174 shares during the last quarter. Morgan Stanley lifted its holdings in Fortinet by 1.3% in the 3rd quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 8,664,124 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $508,411,000 after acquiring an additional 108,548 shares during the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. lifted its holdings in Fortinet by 5.1% in the 3rd quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 5,595,608 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $328,350,000 after acquiring an additional 269,202 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its holdings in Fortinet by 4.2% in the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 3,789,106 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $222,345,000 after acquiring an additional 153,119 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Fortinet in the 4th quarter valued at about $203,501,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 83.71% of the company’s stock.

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.