Cantor Fitzgerald Increases Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) Price Target to $88.00

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) had its target price increased by Cantor Fitzgerald from $65.00 to $88.00 in a report released on Tuesday morning, Benzinga reports. Cantor Fitzgerald currently has a neutral rating on the software maker’s stock.

FTNT has been the subject of several other research reports. Robert W. Baird upped their target price on shares of Fortinet from $75.00 to $80.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 7th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft raised their price objective on Fortinet from $71.00 to $75.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 7th. Wedbush reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $78.00 target price on shares of Fortinet in a research note on Wednesday, August 7th. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price target on Fortinet from $62.00 to $64.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 7th. Finally, Barclays boosted their price objective on Fortinet from $74.00 to $85.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Monday, October 7th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, twenty-two have assigned a hold rating, ten have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Fortinet has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $74.68.

Fortinet Stock Performance

Shares of Fortinet stock opened at $78.66 on Tuesday. Fortinet has a 52 week low of $44.12 and a 52 week high of $83.77. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.45, a quick ratio of 1.22 and a current ratio of 1.32. The stock has a market capitalization of $60.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 46.54, a PEG ratio of 2.78 and a beta of 1.00. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $77.98 and a two-hundred day moving average of $67.38.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, August 6th. The software maker reported $0.57 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.41 by $0.16. The firm had revenue of $1.43 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.40 billion. Fortinet had a negative return on equity of 2,160.10% and a net margin of 23.71%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 10.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.31 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Fortinet will post 1.74 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity

In related news, CEO Ken Xie sold 23,307 shares of Fortinet stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, October 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $81.89, for a total transaction of $1,908,610.23. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 48,915,530 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,005,692,751.70. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 70,538 shares of company stock valued at $5,403,559. 18.00% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Fortinet

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in Fortinet by 1.2% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 68,052,487 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $4,648,665,000 after acquiring an additional 779,271 shares during the period. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD increased its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 664.8% during the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 35,137,089 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $2,400,215,000 after purchasing an additional 30,542,551 shares during the period. Swedbank AB increased its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 1.7% during the second quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 8,156,797 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $491,610,000 after purchasing an additional 134,366 shares during the period. Marshall Wace LLP raised its position in shares of Fortinet by 198.5% in the second quarter. Marshall Wace LLP now owns 6,238,856 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $376,016,000 after buying an additional 4,148,520 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Van ECK Associates Corp boosted its stake in shares of Fortinet by 94.9% in the second quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 5,755,599 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $346,890,000 after buying an additional 2,802,446 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.