Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) Stock Rating Reaffirmed by Susquehanna

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT)‘s stock had its “neutral” rating restated by stock analysts at Susquehanna in a research report issued on Wednesday, Benzinga reports. They presently have a $80.00 price objective on the software maker’s stock. Susquehanna’s price objective points to a potential upside of 15.56% from the company’s previous close.

Other equities analysts have also issued research reports about the company. Cantor Fitzgerald reissued a “neutral” rating and set a $75.00 price objective (up previously from $50.00) on shares of Fortinet in a research note on Wednesday, February 7th. StockNews.com lowered Fortinet from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, March 4th. BMO Capital Markets boosted their price objective on Fortinet from $70.00 to $82.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 7th. Rosenblatt Securities reissued a “buy” rating and set a $85.00 price objective on shares of Fortinet in a research note on Wednesday. Finally, HSBC lowered Fortinet from a “hold” rating to a “reduce” rating and set a $57.00 price target on the stock. in a research note on Wednesday, February 7th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twenty-one have given a hold rating and eleven have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $72.35.

Fortinet Stock Down 2.9 %

Shares of FTNT opened at $69.23 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 13.38, a quick ratio of 1.06 and a current ratio of 1.19. Fortinet has a one year low of $44.12 and a one year high of $81.24. The stock has a market capitalization of $52.82 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 47.74, a PEG ratio of 3.06 and a beta of 1.08. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $68.64 and a 200 day moving average price of $60.97.

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

Insider Buying and Selling at Fortinet

In other news, VP Michael Xie sold 38,369 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 2nd. The stock was 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 of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,985,992,346.10. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. In other news, VP Michael Xie sold 38,369 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 2nd. The stock was 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 of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,985,992,346.10. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Ken Xie sold 23,694 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $71.40, for a total value of $1,691,751.60. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly 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 154,880 shares of company stock valued at $10,233,981 in the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 17.54% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Fortinet

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Alliancebernstein L.P. increased its position in Fortinet by 2.1% during the second 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 increased its position in Fortinet by 2.5% during the second 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. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its position in Fortinet by 1.0% during the first quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 15,178,603 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $1,007,182,000 after buying an additional 147,048 shares during the period. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC increased its position in Fortinet by 125,937.5% during the fourth quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 14,597,668 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $713,680,000 after buying an additional 14,586,086 shares during the period. Finally, Nordea Investment Management AB increased its position in Fortinet by 156.8% during the third quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 9,441,059 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $554,945,000 after buying an additional 5,765,174 shares during the period. 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.