Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) Cut to Hold at Erste Group Bank

Erste Group Bank cut shares of Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a report published on Thursday, MarketBeat.com reports.

FTNT has been the topic of several other reports. BMO Capital Markets dropped their target price on Fortinet from $110.00 to $90.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, August 7th. Wedbush dropped their target price on Fortinet from $120.00 to $100.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, August 7th. Roth Capital set a $103.00 target price on Fortinet and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, April 22nd. Cantor Fitzgerald upped their target price on Fortinet from $100.00 to $110.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 16th. Finally, Cowen downgraded Fortinet from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 7th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twenty-six have assigned a hold rating, eight have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Fortinet presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $97.93.

Fortinet Stock Up 2.4%

NASDAQ:FTNT opened at $79.11 on Thursday. The firm has a market capitalization of $60.62 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.52, a PEG ratio of 3.00 and a beta of 1.07. Fortinet has a 1-year low of $70.12 and a 1-year high of $114.82. The company has a current ratio of 1.33, a quick ratio of 1.24 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $99.22 and its 200 day moving average price is $100.91.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 6th. The software maker reported $0.64 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.59 by $0.05. Fortinet had a return on equity of 111.46% and a net margin of 30.60%. The firm had revenue of $1.63 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.63 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.57 earnings per share. Fortinet’s quarterly revenue was up 13.6% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Fortinet will post 2.09 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity at Fortinet

In other Fortinet news, Director William H. Neukom purchased 335 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, June 6th. The stock was purchased at an average cost of $104.22 per share, with a total value of $34,913.70. Following the acquisition, the director directly owned 301,471 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $31,419,307.62. This trade represents a 0.11% increase in their position. The acquisition was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Ken Xie sold 158,486 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, August 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $98.48, for a total value of $15,607,701.28. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 51,391,879 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,061,072,243.92. This represents a 0.31% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders own 17.20% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Fortinet

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Dover Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of Fortinet by 1.0% in the 2nd quarter. Dover Advisors LLC now owns 9,451 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $999,000 after buying an additional 94 shares during the period. Balboa Wealth Partners increased its stake in shares of Fortinet by 4.3% in the 2nd quarter. Balboa Wealth Partners now owns 2,330 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $246,000 after buying an additional 96 shares during the period. Hemington Wealth Management increased its stake in shares of Fortinet by 13.2% in the 2nd quarter. Hemington Wealth Management now owns 851 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $89,000 after buying an additional 99 shares during the period. Peloton Wealth Strategists increased its stake in shares of Fortinet by 2.4% in the 1st quarter. Peloton Wealth Strategists now owns 4,330 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $417,000 after buying an additional 100 shares during the period. Finally, Trust Co. of Vermont increased its stake in shares of Fortinet by 3.6% in the 2nd quarter. Trust Co. of Vermont now owns 2,852 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $302,000 after buying an additional 100 shares during the period. 83.71% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.