Principal Securities Inc. Lowers Position in Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT)

Principal Securities Inc. lowered its holdings in Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) by 1.3% during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 10,960 shares of the software maker’s stock after selling 148 shares during the quarter. Principal Securities Inc.’s holdings in Fortinet were worth $1,036,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of FTNT. Eastern Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Fortinet in the 3rd quarter valued at about $25,000. Ashton Thomas Securities LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Fortinet in the 3rd quarter valued at about $26,000. Private Wealth Management Group LLC raised its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 73.3% in the 3rd quarter. Private Wealth Management Group LLC now owns 409 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $32,000 after acquiring an additional 173 shares in the last quarter. Golden State Wealth Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Fortinet in the 4th quarter valued at about $46,000. Finally, R Squared Ltd purchased a new stake in shares of Fortinet in the 4th quarter valued at about $65,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 83.71% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have recently commented on the company. Susquehanna increased their price objective on Fortinet from $90.00 to $110.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, February 10th. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price objective on Fortinet from $85.00 to $105.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, February 7th. Citigroup increased their price objective on Fortinet from $100.00 to $101.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, January 17th. UBS Group increased their price objective on Fortinet from $70.00 to $83.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, November 8th. Finally, Raymond James reiterated a “market perform” rating on shares of Fortinet in a research report on Tuesday, January 14th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nineteen have assigned a hold rating, twelve have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $103.72.

Insider Activity

In other news, Director William H. Neukom bought 355 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, December 6th. The stock was bought at an average price of $98.50 per share, for a total transaction of $34,967.50. Following the purchase, the director now directly owns 150,245 shares in the company, valued at $14,799,132.50. This trade represents a 0.24 % increase in their position. The purchase was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ken Xie sold 23,044 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, January 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $93.32, for a total value of $2,150,466.08. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 49,039,698 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,576,384,617.36. The trade was a 0.05 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 63,610 shares of company stock worth $6,083,029 in the last quarter. 18.00% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Fortinet Trading Up 0.3 %

NASDAQ FTNT opened at $114.57 on Thursday. Fortinet, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $54.57 and a fifty-two week high of $114.82. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.67, a quick ratio of 1.39 and a current ratio of 1.47. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $99.56 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $87.75. The stock has a market cap of $87.81 billion, a P/E ratio of 50.69, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.09 and a beta of 1.01.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 6th. The software maker reported $0.67 earnings per share for the quarter, topping 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, analysts forecast that Fortinet, Inc. will post 2.09 earnings per share for the current year.

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.