Piper Sandler Reaffirms Overweight Rating for Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT)

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT)‘s stock had its “overweight” rating restated by stock analysts at Piper Sandler in a report issued on Friday,Benzinga reports. They currently have a $135.00 price objective on the software maker’s stock, up from their prior price objective of $120.00. Piper Sandler’s price target suggests a potential upside of 25.82% from the stock’s previous close.

Several other equities research analysts also recently weighed in on FTNT. UBS Group increased their target price on shares of Fortinet from $70.00 to $83.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, November 8th. StockNews.com raised shares of Fortinet from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, October 25th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upped their target price on Fortinet from $77.00 to $90.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, November 19th. Truist Financial reissued a “buy” rating and set a $105.00 price target (up from $85.00) on shares of Fortinet in a research note on Wednesday, November 20th. Finally, Wedbush upped their price objective on Fortinet from $90.00 to $105.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, November 19th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nineteen have assigned a hold rating, thirteen have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Fortinet has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $98.57.

Fortinet Stock Performance

Fortinet stock opened at $107.30 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.25, a current ratio of 1.34 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.09. Fortinet has a twelve month low of $54.57 and a twelve month high of $112.20. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $97.13 and its 200-day moving average price is $84.21. The company has a market cap of $82.24 billion, a PE ratio of 54.19, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.65 and a beta of 1.01.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 6th. The software maker reported $0.67 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.60 by $0.07. Fortinet had a return on equity of 973.30% and a net margin of 26.79%. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Fortinet will post 1.95 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity at Fortinet

In related news, Director William H. Neukom acquired 355 shares of the firm’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 transaction, the director now directly owns 150,245 shares of the company’s stock, 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 SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Ken Xie sold 23,044 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, January 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $93.32, for a total transaction of $2,150,466.08. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 49,039,698 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,576,384,617.36. This 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 over the last 90 days. Insiders own 18.00% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in FTNT. FMR LLC increased its holdings in Fortinet by 276.3% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 3,685,230 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $285,790,000 after buying an additional 2,705,767 shares during the period. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Fortinet by 136.0% in the fourth quarter. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC now owns 2,919,952 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $275,877,000 after acquiring an additional 1,682,708 shares during the period. State Street Corp raised its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 2.9% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,281,279 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $2,115,663,000 after purchasing an additional 766,135 shares during the last quarter. Raymond James Financial Inc. acquired a new position in Fortinet during the fourth quarter valued at $69,381,000. Finally, Worldquant Millennium Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in Fortinet by 98.9% in the third quarter. Worldquant Millennium Advisors LLC now owns 1,457,858 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $113,057,000 after purchasing an additional 724,887 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 83.71% of the company’s stock.

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.