Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) Downgraded by StockNews.com to “Hold”

StockNews.com downgraded shares of Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research report report published on Friday morning.

FTNT has been the topic of a number of other reports. Susquehanna raised their target price on Fortinet from $90.00 to $110.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, February 10th. Hsbc Global Res upgraded Fortinet from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, November 11th. KeyCorp upgraded Fortinet from a “sector weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $115.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. Scotiabank increased their target price on Fortinet from $115.00 to $135.00 and gave the company a “sector outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, February 7th. Finally, Wedbush boosted their price target on shares of Fortinet from $90.00 to $105.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, November 19th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, twenty have given a hold rating, eleven have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $103.72.

Fortinet Stock Down 0.4 %

Shares of FTNT stock opened at $101.28 on Friday. Fortinet has a twelve month low of $54.57 and a twelve month high of $114.82. The stock has a market cap of $77.88 billion, a P/E ratio of 44.81, a P/E/G ratio of 4.19 and a beta of 0.97. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $101.95 and a 200 day moving average of $90.64. 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 (NASDAQ:FTNT) last posted its 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 net margin of 29.30% and a return on equity of 256.53%. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Fortinet will post 2.09 EPS for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Fortinet news, CEO Ken Xie sold 22,916 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, December 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $97.93, for a total value of $2,244,163.88. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 48,983,683 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,796,972,076.19. This represents a 0.05 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, Director William H. Neukom bought 328 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 6th. The shares were bought at an average cost of $106.33 per share, with a total value of $34,876.24. Following the purchase, the director now owns 300,006 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $31,899,637.98. This trade represents a 0.11 % increase in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 87,120 shares of company stock valued at $8,991,409 over the last quarter. 18.00% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Fortinet

Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Ashton Thomas Securities LLC purchased a new stake in Fortinet in the third quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Edmond DE Rothschild Holding S.A. acquired a new stake in shares of Fortinet in the fourth quarter valued at $27,000. Oarsman Capital Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 188.9% in the 4th quarter. Oarsman Capital Inc. now owns 416 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $39,000 after buying an additional 272 shares during the period. Graney & King LLC acquired a new position in Fortinet during the 4th quarter worth about $43,000. Finally, Banque Transatlantique SA purchased a new position in Fortinet during the 4th quarter valued at about $43,000. 83.71% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.