Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) Stock Rating Lowered by StockNews.com

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

Several other equities research analysts have also recently weighed in on FTNT. Scotiabank upped their price target on Fortinet from $70.00 to $90.00 and gave the company a “sector outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 7th. Cantor Fitzgerald reiterated a “neutral” rating and set a $65.00 price target on shares of Fortinet in a research report on Wednesday. Daiwa Capital Markets upgraded Fortinet from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $75.00 price target on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, February 13th. HSBC cut Fortinet from a “hold” rating to a “reduce” rating and set a $57.00 price target on the stock. in a research report on Wednesday, February 7th. Finally, UBS Group upped their price target on Fortinet from $55.00 to $65.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 10th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twenty-one have given a hold rating and eleven have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $72.19.

Fortinet Trading Down 1.0 %

Shares of FTNT opened at $63.40 on Thursday. The business has a 50-day moving average of $68.50 and a 200 day moving average of $61.55. Fortinet has a fifty-two week low of $44.12 and a fifty-two week high of $81.24. The firm has a market cap of $48.38 billion, a P/E ratio of 43.72, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.87 and a beta of 1.08. 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 (NASDAQ:FTNT) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Monday, February 5th. The software maker reported $0.51 earnings per share 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 company had revenue of $1.42 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.41 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $0.38 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 10.3% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts forecast that Fortinet will post 1.39 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity

In related news, CEO Ken Xie sold 46,084 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $69.07, for a total value of $3,183,021.88. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 51,813,638 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,578,767,976.66. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. In related news, VP Michael Xie sold 38,369 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction 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 completion of the sale, the vice president now owns 29,887,018 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,985,992,346.10. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Ken Xie sold 46,084 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $69.07, for a total value of $3,183,021.88. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 51,813,638 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,578,767,976.66. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 132,139 shares of company stock valued at $8,977,876. 17.54% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Fortinet

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in FTNT. Cito Capital Group LLC bought a new position in Fortinet in the third quarter worth $660,000. Vontobel Holding Ltd. raised its holdings in Fortinet by 7.3% in the fourth quarter. Vontobel Holding Ltd. now owns 507,306 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $29,693,000 after purchasing an additional 34,582 shares in the last quarter. Harel Insurance Investments & Financial Services Ltd. raised its holdings in Fortinet by 2,092.4% in the fourth quarter. Harel Insurance Investments & Financial Services Ltd. now owns 40,603 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $2,411,000 after purchasing an additional 38,751 shares in the last quarter. Alamar Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in Fortinet by 12.5% in the third quarter. Alamar Capital Management LLC now owns 63,788 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $3,743,000 after purchasing an additional 7,110 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Marshall Financial Group LLC bought a new position in shares of Fortinet during the fourth quarter valued at $1,487,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 83.71% of the company’s stock.

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.