Michael Xie Sells 326,784 Shares of Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) Stock

Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) VP Michael Xie sold 326,784 shares of the firm’s 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 completion of the sale, the vice president now 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 sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink.

Fortinet Stock Performance

Shares of Fortinet stock traded up $2.24 on Tuesday, reaching $98.28. 6,310,715 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 4,826,094. 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, Inc. has a twelve month low of $54.57 and a twelve month high of $114.82. The firm has a market capitalization of $75.57 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 43.49, a PEG ratio of 4.19 and a beta of 0.97. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $102.15 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $91.36.

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

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently bought and sold shares of FTNT. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Fortinet in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $724,048,000. Schroder Investment Management Group acquired a new position in Fortinet in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $389,867,000. FMR LLC lifted its holdings in Fortinet by 77.2% in the fourth quarter. FMR LLC now owns 6,531,705 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $617,115,000 after acquiring an additional 2,846,475 shares during the period. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership lifted its holdings 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 period. Finally, Bessemer Group Inc. lifted its holdings in Fortinet by 72.6% in the fourth quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. now owns 4,906,439 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $463,561,000 after acquiring an additional 2,064,016 shares during the period. 83.71% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

FTNT has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Guggenheim restated a “neutral” rating on shares of Fortinet in a research report on Friday, February 7th. Mizuho lifted their target price on Fortinet from $68.00 to $78.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a research report on Friday, December 13th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on Fortinet from $99.00 to $105.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft lifted their target price on Fortinet from $77.00 to $90.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, November 19th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus raised their price target on Fortinet from $103.00 to $115.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note 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 one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus 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.