Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) Earns “Buy” Rating from Stifel Nicolaus

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT)‘s stock had its “buy” rating restated by analysts at Stifel Nicolaus in a research note issued on Thursday, Benzinga reports. They currently have a $72.00 price objective on the software maker’s stock. Stifel Nicolaus’ price target would indicate a potential upside of 14.65% from the company’s previous close.

FTNT has been the subject of a number of other research reports. Robert W. Baird lowered their target price on Fortinet from $93.00 to $84.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, August 4th. Rosenblatt Securities reiterated a “neutral” rating and issued a $90.00 price objective on shares of Fortinet in a research report on Wednesday. Capital One Financial initiated coverage on shares of Fortinet in a report on Wednesday. They issued an “overweight” rating and a $74.00 target price on the stock. Scotiabank lowered their price target on shares of Fortinet from $90.00 to $71.00 and set a “sector outperform” rating for the company in a report on Friday, August 4th. Finally, Wedbush cut their price target on shares of Fortinet from $70.00 to $69.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, August 4th. Ten equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twenty-four have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $73.26.

Fortinet Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ FTNT traded up $0.18 during trading hours on Thursday, reaching $62.80. 984,736 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 5,445,763. The company has a market capitalization of $49.32 billion, a P/E ratio of 47.22, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.78 and a beta of 1.16. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $67.38 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $66.82. The company has a quick ratio of 1.29, a current ratio of 1.39 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.09. Fortinet has a 52-week low of $42.61 and a 52-week high of $81.24.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 3rd. The software maker reported $0.38 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.34 by $0.04. Fortinet had a net margin of 21.24% and a negative return on equity of 698.28%. The firm had revenue of $1.29 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.30 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $0.18 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 25.5% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts forecast that Fortinet will post 1.24 EPS for the current year.

Insider Transactions at Fortinet

In related news, Director William H. Neukom purchased 552 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, September 8th. The stock was purchased at an average price of $63.28 per share, with a total value of $34,930.56. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 291,551 shares in the company, valued at $18,449,347.28. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. In other Fortinet news, Director William H. Neukom acquired 552 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, September 8th. The shares were acquired at an average cost of $63.28 per share, with a total value of $34,930.56. Following the transaction, the director now owns 291,551 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $18,449,347.28. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, CFO Keith Jensen sold 24,715 shares of Fortinet stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $58.99, for a total value of $1,457,937.85. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 4,583 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $270,351.17. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 67,218 shares of company stock valued at $4,429,412. Insiders own 17.54% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Fortinet

Institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. ST Germain D J Co. Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Fortinet during the second quarter valued at approximately $40,000. Westshore Wealth LLC purchased a new stake in Fortinet during the 2nd quarter valued at $265,000. Portside Wealth Group LLC bought a new position in shares of Fortinet during the 2nd quarter valued at $1,694,000. Manhattan West Asset Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Fortinet by 15.7% in the 2nd quarter. Manhattan West Asset Management LLC now owns 20,120 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $1,521,000 after buying an additional 2,728 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Chapin Davis Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Fortinet in the second quarter worth $1,628,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 65.00% of the company’s stock.

Fortinet Company Profile

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.