Fortinet, Inc. $FTNT Holdings Raised by Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund

Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund lifted its stake in Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) by 15.7% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 67,202 shares of the software maker’s stock after purchasing an additional 9,125 shares during the period. Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund’s holdings in Fortinet were worth $12,013,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Burk Holdings LLC bought a new stake in shares of Fortinet during the second quarter worth approximately $25,000. Dunhill Financial LLC bought a new position in Fortinet during the second quarter worth about $25,000. Cornerstone Financial Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 102.5% during the 2nd quarter. Cornerstone Financial Management LLC now owns 164 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $25,000 after purchasing an additional 83 shares in the last quarter. NFSG Corp acquired a new position in shares of Fortinet in the third quarter valued at approximately $34,000. Finally, Timbuktu Capital Management LLC acquired a new position in Fortinet in the 2nd quarter worth $31,000. 83.71% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Fortinet news, VP Michael Xie sold 3,121 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $129.49, for a total value of $404,138.29. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president directly owned 9,918,360 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,284,328,436.40. This represents a 0.03% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. 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 161,483 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $129.31, for a total value of $20,881,366.73. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 52,972,372 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $6,849,857,423.32. This represents a 0.30% decrease in their ownership of the stock. 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. Insiders have sold 221,304 shares of company stock valued at $30,675,309 in the last ninety days. 17.60% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Fortinet Trading Up 3.7%

FTNT opened at $128.10 on Thursday. Fortinet, Inc. has a 1-year low of $73.55 and a 1-year high of $197.13. The company has a current ratio of 1.40, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.22. The company has a market cap of $94.12 billion, a P/E ratio of 41.59, a PEG ratio of 2.37 and a beta of 1.04. The company’s 50 day moving average is $165.56 and its 200-day moving average is $130.19.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 28th. The software maker reported $0.91 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.86 by $0.05. The company had revenue of $2.08 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.06 billion. Fortinet had a net margin of 28.96% and a return on equity of 152.72%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 20.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $0.74 earnings per share. Equities research analysts predict that Fortinet, Inc. will post 3.21 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have recently weighed in on FTNT. UBS Group reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and set a $200.00 price target on shares of Fortinet in a research note on Thursday, October 15th. Sanford C. Bernstein reissued a “market perform” rating and set a $145.00 price target (up from $102.00) on shares of Fortinet in a research report on Thursday, September 17th. HSBC increased their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $102.00 to $107.00 in a research report on Friday, July 31st. Piper Sandler set a $140.00 price target on Fortinet and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, October 29th. Finally, Roth Capital boosted their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $90.00 to $110.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 29th. Eleven analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, twenty-four have assigned a Hold rating and six have assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $150.44.

About Fortinet

Fortinet, Inc. is a cybersecurity and networking company that provides products and services to help organizations protect their networks, devices, applications, and cloud environments. Its offerings include FortiGate next-generation firewalls, the FortiOS operating system, and security, endpoint, cloud, and secure access service edge (SASE) solutions. The company’s Security Fabric platform is designed to integrate security and networking products and support centralized visibility and management.