Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) Raised to Strong-Buy at Stephens

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) was upgraded by research analysts at Stephens to a “strong-buy” rating in a note issued to investors on Monday,Zacks.com reports.

A number of other equities research analysts also recently issued reports on the stock. Susquehanna increased their target price on shares of Fortinet from $90.00 to $110.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, February 10th. StockNews.com lowered Fortinet from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday. The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their target price on Fortinet from $114.00 to $130.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, February 7th. Raymond James reaffirmed a “market perform” rating on shares of Fortinet in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. Finally, Mizuho boosted their price target on Fortinet from $68.00 to $78.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research note on Friday, December 13th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, twenty have assigned a hold rating, eleven have issued a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $105.77.

Fortinet Stock Performance

Shares of FTNT stock opened at $96.67 on Monday. The company has a market capitalization of $74.34 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 42.77, a P/E/G ratio of 4.19 and a beta of 0.97. Fortinet has a 1-year low of $54.57 and a 1-year high of $114.82. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.39 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.67. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $103.00 and its 200-day simple moving average is $93.68.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last released its earnings results on Thursday, February 6th. The software maker reported $0.67 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.60 by $0.07. Fortinet had a return on equity of 256.53% and a net margin of 29.30%. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Fortinet will post 2.09 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Fortinet news, CEO Ken Xie sold 23,044 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, January 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $93.32, for a total transaction of $2,150,466.08. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 49,039,698 shares in the company, valued at $4,576,384,617.36. This represents a 0.05 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director Kenneth A. Goldman sold 2,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $100.00, for a total transaction of $200,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 18,612 shares in the company, valued at $1,861,200. This represents a 9.70 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 599,988 shares of company stock valued at $59,094,530 over the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 18.00% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Fortinet

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Edmond DE Rothschild Holding S.A. bought a new stake in Fortinet during the 4th quarter worth approximately $27,000. Oarsman Capital Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 188.9% in the fourth quarter. Oarsman Capital Inc. now owns 416 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $39,000 after buying an additional 272 shares during the last quarter. Graney & King LLC bought a new stake in Fortinet during the 4th quarter worth about $43,000. Banque Transatlantique SA acquired a new stake in Fortinet in the 4th quarter valued at about $43,000. Finally, Golden State Wealth Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Fortinet during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $46,000. 83.71% of the stock is currently 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.