William Blair Weighs in on Fortinet, Inc.’s Q3 2024 Earnings (NASDAQ:FTNT)

Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) – Stock analysts at William Blair raised their Q3 2024 earnings estimates for shares of Fortinet in a report issued on Wednesday, August 7th. William Blair analyst J. Ho now anticipates that the software maker will post earnings of $0.43 per share for the quarter, up from their previous forecast of $0.36. The consensus estimate for Fortinet’s current full-year earnings is $1.47 per share. William Blair also issued estimates for Fortinet’s Q4 2024 earnings at $0.42 EPS, Q1 2025 earnings at $0.43 EPS and Q3 2025 earnings at $0.48 EPS.

A number of other equities research analysts also recently issued reports on the stock. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $62.00 to $64.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 7th. UBS Group upped their price objective on Fortinet from $69.00 to $70.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 7th. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their price target on shares of Fortinet from $68.00 to $72.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 7th. Guggenheim lowered shares of Fortinet from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, July 29th. Finally, HSBC upgraded Fortinet from a “reduce” rating to a “hold” rating and set a $59.00 price objective on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, August 7th. Twenty-three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, ten have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $71.31.

Fortinet Trading Up 1.6 %

NASDAQ FTNT opened at $71.50 on Monday. The firm has a market capitalization of $54.62 billion, a P/E ratio of 46.73, a PEG ratio of 2.79 and a beta of 0.98. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $60.08 and a 200 day simple moving average of $63.79. Fortinet has a 12 month low of $44.12 and a 12 month high of $73.91.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, August 6th. The software maker reported $0.57 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.41 by $0.16. The business had revenue of $1.43 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.40 billion. Fortinet had a net margin of 22.23% and a negative return on equity of 2,235.48%. Fortinet’s quarterly revenue was up 10.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $0.31 EPS.

Insider Buying and Selling at Fortinet

In other Fortinet news, Director William H. Neukom purchased 586 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, June 6th. The shares were acquired at an average cost of $59.55 per share, for a total transaction of $34,896.30. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 295,778 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $17,613,579.90. The acquisition was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible 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 shares were 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 owns 10,847,018 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $608,626,179.98. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, Director William H. Neukom purchased 586 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, June 6th. The shares were acquired at an average cost of $59.55 per share, for a total transaction of $34,896.30. Following the completion of the acquisition, the director now owns 295,778 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $17,613,579.90. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 91,915 shares of company stock worth $5,401,638 in the last three months. 18.00% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Fortinet

A number of institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings in Fortinet by 1.2% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 68,052,487 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $4,648,665,000 after acquiring an additional 779,271 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 664.8% during the 1st 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 increased its position in Fortinet by 1.7% in the second quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 8,156,797 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $491,610,000 after purchasing an additional 134,366 shares during the last quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp lifted its position 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 valued at $346,890,000 after purchasing an additional 2,802,446 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Renaissance Technologies LLC increased its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 15.0% in the 2nd quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC now owns 5,026,394 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $302,941,000 after buying an additional 657,400 shares during the last quarter. 83.71% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.