StockNews.com Upgrades Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) to “Buy”

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) was upgraded by StockNews.com from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note issued on Wednesday.

Several other analysts have also recently commented on the company. Susquehanna restated a “neutral” rating and set a $80.00 target price on shares of Fortinet in a report on Wednesday, April 3rd. UBS Group increased their target price on Fortinet from $55.00 to $65.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 10th. Daiwa Capital Markets upgraded Fortinet from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $75.00 target price on the stock in a report on Tuesday, February 13th. Capital One Financial cut Fortinet from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 17th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada increased their target price on Fortinet from $60.00 to $71.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 7th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twenty have given a hold rating and twelve have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Fortinet has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $72.35.

Fortinet Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:FTNT opened at $68.22 on Wednesday. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $68.91 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $61.28. Fortinet has a fifty-two week low of $44.12 and a fifty-two week high of $81.24. The stock has a market capitalization of $52.05 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 47.05, 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 (NASDAQ:FTNT) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Monday, February 5th. The software maker reported $0.51 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates 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 for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.41 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $0.38 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 10.3% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts predict that Fortinet will post 1.39 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Fortinet

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

Institutional Trading of Fortinet

Several hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in FTNT. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in Fortinet by 125,937.5% during the 4th quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 14,597,668 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $713,680,000 after purchasing an additional 14,586,086 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Fortinet during the 4th quarter worth approximately $312,964,000. Nordea Investment Management AB lifted its holdings in Fortinet by 156.8% during the 3rd quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 9,441,059 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $554,945,000 after purchasing an additional 5,765,174 shares during the last quarter. Voya Investment Management LLC raised its holdings in Fortinet by 160.8% in the 4th quarter. Voya Investment Management LLC now owns 5,426,282 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $317,600,000 after acquiring an additional 3,345,630 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. raised its holdings in Fortinet by 79.6% in the 3rd quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 3,576,224 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $209,853,000 after acquiring an additional 1,585,236 shares in the last quarter. 83.71% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.