Insider Selling: Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) CEO Sells 206,000 Shares of Stock

Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) CEO Ken Xie sold 206,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, March 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $96.93, for a total value of $19,967,580.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 51,391,879 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,981,414,831.47. This represents a 0.40 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website.

Ken Xie also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Wednesday, January 15th, Ken Xie sold 23,044 shares of Fortinet stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $93.32, for a total value of $2,150,466.08.
• On Tuesday, December 17th, Ken Xie sold 22,916 shares of Fortinet stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $97.93, for a total value of $2,244,163.88.

Fortinet Trading Down 0.4 %

Shares of FTNT stock opened at $97.93 on Thursday. The stock has a market cap of $75.31 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 43.33, a PEG ratio of 4.19 and a beta of 0.97. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $102.22 and a 200-day moving average of $91.41. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.39 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.67. Fortinet, Inc. has a 1-year low of $54.57 and a 1-year high of $114.82.

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

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Fortinet

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Fortinet by 1.1% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 68,115,470 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $6,435,550,000 after buying an additional 730,994 shares during the period. State Street Corp grew its stake in 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 period. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in Fortinet by 2.6% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 15,270,913 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $1,440,648,000 after purchasing an additional 387,901 shares during the period. Invesco Ltd. grew its stake in Fortinet by 31.3% during the fourth quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 8,388,693 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $792,564,000 after purchasing an additional 2,000,888 shares during the period. Finally, Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Fortinet during the fourth quarter worth approximately $724,048,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 83.71% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Wells Fargo & Company increased their target price on Fortinet from $85.00 to $105.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, February 7th. Robert W. Baird reissued a “neutral” rating and set a $112.00 target price (up from $105.00) on shares of Fortinet in a report on Monday, February 3rd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on Fortinet from $99.00 to $105.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. BMO Capital Markets increased their target price on Fortinet from $88.00 to $100.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Tuesday, November 19th. Finally, KeyCorp raised Fortinet from a “sector weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $115.00 target price on the stock in a report on Thursday, December 19th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, twenty have issued a hold rating, eleven have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Fortinet currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $103.72.

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.