Vicus Capital Reduces Position in Fortinet, Inc. $FTNT

Vicus Capital trimmed its position in Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) by 37.1% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 2,133 shares of the software maker’s stock after selling 1,256 shares during the quarter. Vicus Capital’s holdings in Fortinet were worth $226,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Several other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in FTNT. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Fortinet by 5.2% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 71,662,404 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $6,898,223,000 after acquiring an additional 3,546,934 shares during the period. Invesco Ltd. grew its stake in shares of Fortinet by 2.2% in the first quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 8,570,528 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $824,999,000 after purchasing an additional 181,835 shares during the last quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC increased its holdings in Fortinet by 17.1% during the 1st quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC now owns 7,016,467 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $675,405,000 after purchasing an additional 1,026,277 shares during the period. Northern Trust Corp raised its position in Fortinet by 0.8% during the 1st quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 6,519,558 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $627,573,000 after purchasing an additional 49,238 shares during the last quarter. Finally, AQR Capital Management LLC raised its position in Fortinet by 40.9% during the 1st quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 5,971,648 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $561,156,000 after purchasing an additional 1,733,670 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 83.71% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Wedbush cut their price objective on Fortinet from $120.00 to $100.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, August 7th. Morgan Stanley reissued an “underweight” rating and set a $67.00 price objective (down from $78.00) on shares of Fortinet in a research report on Tuesday, September 2nd. Truist Financial decreased their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $125.00 to $95.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, August 7th. TD Cowen reaffirmed a “hold” rating and set a $105.00 target price on shares of Fortinet in a research note on Thursday, August 7th. Finally, Wall Street Zen downgraded shares of Fortinet from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, August 9th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eight have given a Buy rating, twenty-five have assigned a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $97.03.

Fortinet Stock Performance

Shares of FTNT opened at $86.29 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.24, a current ratio of 1.33 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24. The stock has a market cap of $66.12 billion, a P/E ratio of 34.38, a P/E/G ratio of 3.21 and a beta of 1.09. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $83.73 and its 200-day moving average price is $95.16. Fortinet, Inc. has a 52 week low of $70.12 and a 52 week high of $114.82.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 6th. The software maker reported $0.64 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.59 by $0.05. Fortinet had a return on equity of 111.46% and a net margin of 30.60%.The business had revenue of $1.63 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.63 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $0.57 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 13.6% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts anticipate that Fortinet, Inc. will post 2.09 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Fortinet

In other Fortinet news, CEO Ken Xie sold 158,486 shares of Fortinet stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $98.48, for a total value of $15,607,701.28. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 51,391,879 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,061,072,243.92. The trade was a 0.31% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, VP Michael Xie sold 476,596 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $98.48, for a total transaction of $46,935,174.08. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president owned 9,730,560 shares in the company, valued at approximately $958,265,548.80. This represents a 4.67% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders own 17.20% of the company’s stock.

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.