Insider Selling: Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) COO Sells 146,015 Shares of Stock

Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) COO John Whittle sold 146,015 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, May 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $128.41, for a total transaction of $18,749,786.15. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer directly owned 94,724 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $12,163,508.84. This trade represents a 60.65% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website.

Fortinet Trading Up 3.5%

NASDAQ:FTNT traded up $4.47 during trading hours on Friday, reaching $133.93. 5,817,473 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 6,529,245. The firm has a market cap of $98.12 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 51.71, a PEG ratio of 3.58 and a beta of 0.92. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $91.06 and a 200 day simple moving average of $84.58. Fortinet, Inc. has a 52-week low of $70.12 and a 52-week high of $134.19. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.50, a current ratio of 1.15 and a quick ratio of 1.07.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, May 6th. The software maker reported $0.82 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.62 by $0.20. The company had revenue of $1.85 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.73 billion. Fortinet had a net margin of 27.49% and a return on equity of 160.08%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 20.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $0.58 EPS. Fortinet has set its Q2 2026 guidance at 0.720-0.760 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 3.100-3.160 EPS. As a group, analysts predict that Fortinet, Inc. will post 2.77 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

FTNT has been the topic of a number of research reports. Scotiabank raised their price objective on Fortinet from $85.00 to $110.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a report on Thursday, May 7th. Wedbush reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $90.00 target price on shares of Fortinet in a report on Friday, February 6th. Weiss Ratings downgraded shares of Fortinet from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “hold (c)” rating in a research report on Tuesday. Stifel Nicolaus set a $85.00 price target on shares of Fortinet in a research report on Wednesday, March 11th. Finally, Freedom Capital downgraded shares of Fortinet from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, February 17th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, five have issued a Buy rating, twenty-four have assigned a Hold rating and four have assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $101.83.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Fortinet

A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Pinnacle Holdings LLC acquired a new position in Fortinet during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $25,000. Ameriflex Group Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Fortinet during the third quarter valued at approximately $25,000. Wexford Capital LP acquired a new position in shares of Fortinet during the third quarter worth $25,000. Physician Wealth Advisors Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Fortinet by 408.3% in the first quarter. Physician Wealth Advisors Inc. now owns 305 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $25,000 after purchasing an additional 245 shares during the period. Finally, Palisade Asset Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Fortinet in the third quarter valued at $28,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 83.71% of the company’s stock.

About Fortinet

Fortinet, Inc (NASDAQ: FTNT) is a multinational cybersecurity company that develops and delivers integrated security solutions for enterprise, service provider and government customers worldwide. Founded in 2000 and headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, the company was co‑founded by Ken Xie and Michael Xie. Ken Xie serves as chairman and chief executive officer, and the company operates through a global sales, channel and services organization to support customers across the Americas, EMEA and Asia‑Pacific.

Fortinet’s product portfolio centers on network security appliances and software, with its FortiGate next‑generation firewalls and the FortiOS operating system forming a core platform.