Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) Stock Price Up 5.9% – Still a Buy?

Shares of Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) traded up 5.9% on Monday . The stock traded as high as $165.79 and last traded at $165.2390. 1,223,484 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 80% from the average session volume of 6,066,300 shares. The stock had previously closed at $156.07.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts have recently commented on the stock. Royal Bank Of Canada set a $185.00 price target on shares of Fortinet and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a report on Thursday, July 30th. Wolfe Research set a $175.00 price objective on Fortinet in a report on Thursday, July 30th. Stifel Nicolaus set a $175.00 price objective on Fortinet and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 30th. Morgan Stanley reiterated a “positive” rating and issued a $136.00 target price (up from $133.00) on shares of Fortinet in a research note on Thursday, July 30th. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald reissued a “neutral” rating on shares of Fortinet in a research note on Monday, August 24th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, ten have given a Buy rating, nineteen have issued a Hold rating and five have issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $150.91.

Fortinet Stock Up 8.7%

The company has a current ratio of 1.28, a quick ratio of 1.19 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32. The firm has a market capitalization of $124.48 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 59.69, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.94 and a beta of 1.06. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $158.99 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $125.98.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 29th. The software maker reported $0.90 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.75 by $0.15. Fortinet had a net margin of 28.17% and a return on equity of 191.54%. The firm had revenue of $2.05 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.89 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $0.64 earnings per share. Fortinet’s revenue for the quarter was up 25.6% compared to the same quarter last year. Fortinet has set its FY 2026 guidance at 3.410-3.470 EPS and its Q3 2026 guidance at 0.830-0.870 EPS. On average, equities analysts expect that Fortinet, Inc. will post 3.07 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity

In other Fortinet news, VP Michael Xie sold 3,121 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $162.63, for a total transaction of $507,568.23. Following the transaction, the vice president owned 9,918,360 shares in the company, valued at $1,613,022,886.80. The trade was a 0.03% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. Also, CEO Ken Xie sold 161,482 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $162.66, for a total value of $26,266,662.12. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 52,972,372 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $8,616,486,029.52. The trade was a 0.30% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. Company insiders own 17.60% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Fortinet

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Expressive Wealth LLC bought a new position in shares of Fortinet during the fourth quarter worth about $646,000. Transamerica Financial Advisors LLC bought a new position in Fortinet during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $492,000. Leonteq Securities AG acquired a new position in shares of Fortinet in the 4th quarter worth approximately $10,422,000. Eurizon Capital SGR S.p.A. acquired a new stake in shares of Fortinet during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $14,638,000. Finally, Thrivent Financial for Lutherans lifted its stake in Fortinet by 156.6% during the fourth quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans now owns 390,492 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $31,009,000 after purchasing an additional 238,299 shares during the last quarter. 83.71% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About Fortinet

Fortinet, Inc develops cybersecurity products and services designed to protect enterprise, small and midsize business, service provider, and government networks. Its portfolio covers network security, endpoint protection, cloud security, secure access service edge (SASE), security operations, and zero-trust access.

The company’s offerings include FortiGate next-generation firewalls, FortiSwitch secure networking switches, FortiAP wireless access points, FortiClient endpoint security, and FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer management and analytics tools.