BMO Capital Markets Boosts Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) Price Target to $76.00

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) had its target price hoisted by BMO Capital Markets from $70.00 to $76.00 in a research report released on Wednesday, Benzinga reports. They currently have a market perform rating on the software maker’s stock.

A number of other brokerages have also recently weighed in on FTNT. Morgan Stanley cut their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $73.00 to $69.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, July 17th. Truist Financial cut their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $80.00 to $70.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, May 3rd. Barclays lowered their target price on Fortinet from $75.00 to $70.00 and set an equal weight rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, July 11th. Guggenheim lowered Fortinet from a buy rating to a neutral rating in a report on Monday, July 29th. Finally, Piper Sandler lowered their target price on Fortinet from $75.00 to $70.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a report on Friday, May 3rd. Twenty-three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, ten have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $71.31.

Fortinet Trading Up 1.5 %

Fortinet stock traded up $1.01 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, reaching $69.69. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 6,988,618 shares, compared to its average volume of 5,926,143. The firm has a market cap of $53.24 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 45.55, a PEG ratio of 2.79 and a beta of 0.98. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $59.59 and a 200-day moving average price of $63.74. Fortinet has a twelve month low of $44.12 and a twelve month high of $73.91.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, August 6th. The software maker reported $0.57 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.41 by $0.16. The company had revenue of $1.43 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.40 billion. Fortinet had a negative return on equity of 2,235.48% and a net margin of 22.23%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 10.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business posted $0.31 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts expect that Fortinet will post 1.47 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Fortinet news, CFO Keith Jensen sold 18,701 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, June 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $59.68, for a total transaction of $1,116,075.68. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 4,663 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $278,287.84. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In related news, VP Michael Xie sold 24,712 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, August 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $56.11, for a total value of $1,386,590.32. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now directly owns 10,847,018 shares in the company, valued at $608,626,179.98. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CFO Keith Jensen sold 18,701 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, June 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $59.68, for a total value of $1,116,075.68. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 4,663 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $278,287.84. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 91,915 shares of company stock valued at $5,401,638 over the last 90 days. 18.00% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of FTNT. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its stake in Fortinet by 664.8% during the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 35,137,089 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $2,400,215,000 after acquiring an additional 30,542,551 shares in the last quarter. Swedbank AB acquired a new position in Fortinet during the first quarter worth $548,013,000. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Fortinet during the fourth quarter worth $203,501,000. Van ECK Associates Corp raised its stake in Fortinet by 94.9% during the second quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 5,755,599 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $346,890,000 after acquiring an additional 2,802,446 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Sarasin & Partners LLP acquired a new position in Fortinet during the first quarter worth $120,746,000. 83.71% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Fortinet

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.