Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) PT Lowered to $70.00

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) had its price target lowered by Piper Sandler from $75.00 to $70.00 in a research note issued to investors on Friday, Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has a neutral rating on the software maker’s stock.

A number of other equities research analysts have also recently commented on FTNT. Sanford C. Bernstein initiated coverage on shares of Fortinet in a research note on Thursday, January 18th. They set a market perform rating and a $65.00 target price on the stock. BMO Capital Markets raised their price target on Fortinet from $70.00 to $82.00 and gave the company a market perform rating in a report on Wednesday, February 7th. The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their price objective on Fortinet from $60.00 to $85.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Thursday, February 8th. Citigroup cut Fortinet from a buy rating to a neutral rating and increased their target price for the stock from $60.00 to $62.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 9th. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald reissued a neutral rating and issued a $65.00 price target on shares of Fortinet in a report on Wednesday, April 17th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twenty have assigned a hold rating and twelve have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average target price of $70.37.

Fortinet Price Performance

NASDAQ FTNT opened at $58.81 on Friday. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $67.34 and a 200-day moving average price of $61.96. Fortinet has a 52 week low of $44.12 and a 52 week high of $81.24. The company has a quick ratio of 1.08, a current ratio of 1.20 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 13.38. The firm has a market capitalization of $44.89 billion, a P/E ratio of 38.44, a PEG ratio of 2.60 and a beta of 1.08.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, May 2nd. The software maker reported $0.43 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.38 by $0.05. The company had revenue of $1.35 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.34 billion. Fortinet had a net margin of 22.23% and a negative return on equity of 2,235.48%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 7.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $0.29 earnings per share. Equities research analysts anticipate that Fortinet will post 1.4 earnings per share for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, VP Michael Xie sold 24,710 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, May 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $64.48, for a total transaction of $1,593,300.80. Following the completion of the sale, the vice president now directly owns 10,867,018 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $700,705,320.64. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In related news, VP Michael Xie sold 24,710 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, May 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $64.48, for a total value of $1,593,300.80. Following the completion of the sale, the vice president now owns 10,867,018 shares in the company, valued at $700,705,320.64. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ken Xie sold 23,694 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 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 disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 118,480 shares of company stock worth $8,021,556 over the last quarter. Company insiders own 17.54% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Fortinet

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in FTNT. Nordea Investment Management AB lifted its position in shares of Fortinet by 156.8% in 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 period. Norges Bank bought a new stake in Fortinet during the 4th quarter valued at $203,501,000. Sarasin & Partners LLP purchased a new position in shares of Fortinet in the 1st quarter valued at $120,746,000. DSM Capital Partners LLC bought a new position in shares of Fortinet in the 3rd quarter worth $75,698,000. Finally, Public Sector Pension Investment Board lifted its stake in shares of Fortinet by 358.1% during the 3rd quarter. Public Sector Pension Investment Board now owns 1,644,139 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $96,478,000 after purchasing an additional 1,285,197 shares during the last quarter. 83.71% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.