Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) Shares Bought by CENTRAL TRUST Co

CENTRAL TRUST Co grew its position in Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) by 52.3% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 4,739 shares of the software maker’s stock after buying an additional 1,627 shares during the quarter. CENTRAL TRUST Co’s holdings in Fortinet were worth $448,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of FTNT. First Hawaiian Bank acquired a new position in Fortinet during the 4th quarter worth $670,000. LVM Capital Management Ltd. MI grew its stake in Fortinet by 10.7% during the 4th quarter. LVM Capital Management Ltd. MI now owns 89,827 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $8,487,000 after purchasing an additional 8,707 shares in the last quarter. Apollon Wealth Management LLC grew its stake in Fortinet by 7.6% during the 3rd quarter. Apollon Wealth Management LLC now owns 15,296 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $1,186,000 after purchasing an additional 1,081 shares in the last quarter. Forsta AP Fonden grew its stake in Fortinet by 11.8% during the 3rd quarter. Forsta AP Fonden now owns 135,500 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $10,508,000 after purchasing an additional 14,300 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Quadrature Capital Ltd acquired a new position in Fortinet during the 3rd quarter worth $10,343,000. 83.71% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms recently commented on FTNT. HSBC raised Fortinet from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $83.00 to $111.00 in a research note on Monday, November 11th. KeyCorp raised Fortinet from a “sector weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $115.00 price target for the company in a report on Thursday, December 19th. StockNews.com raised Fortinet from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, October 25th. Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a “hold” rating on shares of Fortinet in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group lifted their price target on Fortinet from $95.00 to $105.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, December 19th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nineteen have given a hold rating, thirteen have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $97.73.

Fortinet Stock Performance

Shares of FTNT stock opened at $102.78 on Wednesday. The company has a market cap of $78.78 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 51.91, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.65 and a beta of 1.01. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $96.70 and a 200-day simple moving average of $83.92. Fortinet, Inc. has a 12-month low of $54.57 and a 12-month high of $102.87. The company has a current ratio of 1.34, a quick ratio of 1.25 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.09.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, November 7th. The software maker reported $0.56 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.43 by $0.13. Fortinet had a return on equity of 973.30% and a net margin of 26.79%. The business had revenue of $1.51 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.48 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $0.35 EPS. On average, equities analysts forecast that Fortinet, Inc. will post 1.95 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity at Fortinet

In other news, Director William H. Neukom acquired 355 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, December 6th. The stock was purchased at an average cost of $98.50 per share, with a total value of $34,967.50. Following the purchase, the director now directly owns 150,245 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $14,799,132.50. This trade represents a 0.24 % increase in their position. The acquisition was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ken Xie sold 22,916 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, December 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $97.93, for a total value of $2,244,163.88. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 48,983,683 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,796,972,076.19. This trade represents a 0.05 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 67,860 shares of company stock valued at $6,469,056 in the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 18.00% of the company’s stock.

Fortinet 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.