Geode Capital Management LLC Grows Position in Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT)

Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) by 2.6% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 15,270,913 shares of the software maker’s stock after purchasing an additional 387,901 shares during the quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC owned 1.99% of Fortinet worth $1,440,648,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in Fortinet by 1.1% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 68,115,470 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $6,435,550,000 after buying an additional 730,994 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp lifted its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 2.9% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,281,279 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $2,115,663,000 after acquiring an additional 766,135 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new position in Fortinet in the fourth quarter worth $724,048,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership increased its stake in Fortinet by 39.3% in the fourth quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 7,622,253 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $720,150,000 after acquiring an additional 2,151,811 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Amundi raised its position in Fortinet by 36.7% during the fourth quarter. Amundi now owns 6,577,467 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $631,700,000 after purchasing an additional 1,766,860 shares in the last quarter. 83.71% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts have recently issued reports on FTNT shares. Mizuho upped their price objective on Fortinet from $68.00 to $78.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a report on Friday, December 13th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their target price on Fortinet from $99.00 to $105.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Fortinet from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday. Robert W. Baird reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $112.00 price objective (up previously from $105.00) on shares of Fortinet in a research note on Monday, February 3rd. Finally, Scotiabank increased their target price on shares of Fortinet from $115.00 to $135.00 and gave the company a “sector outperform” rating in a report on Friday, February 7th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, twenty have given a hold rating, eleven have assigned a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $105.77.

Fortinet Trading Up 0.4 %

NASDAQ FTNT opened at $96.67 on Wednesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $74.34 billion, a PE ratio of 42.77, a P/E/G ratio of 4.19 and a beta of 0.97. The stock’s 50 day moving average is $103.00 and its 200 day moving average is $93.68. Fortinet, Inc. has a twelve month low of $54.57 and a twelve month high of $114.82. The company has a quick ratio of 1.39, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.67.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, February 6th. The software maker reported $0.67 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.60 by $0.07. Fortinet had a net margin of 29.30% and a return on equity of 256.53%. Research analysts forecast that Fortinet, Inc. will post 2.09 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, VP Michael Xie sold 326,784 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, March 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $98.17, for a total value of $32,080,385.28. Following the sale, the vice president now directly owns 11,000,068 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,079,876,675.56. This represents a 2.89 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, Director William H. Neukom purchased 328 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, March 6th. The stock was bought at an average cost of $106.33 per share, with a total value of $34,876.24. Following the transaction, the director now owns 300,006 shares in the company, valued at $31,899,637.98. The trade was a 0.11 % increase in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 599,988 shares of company stock worth $59,094,530. 18.00% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

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.