Rosenblatt Securities Forecasts Strong Price Appreciation for Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) Stock

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) had its price target lifted by analysts at Rosenblatt Securities from $72.00 to $85.00 in a research note issued to investors on Thursday, Benzinga reports. The brokerage presently has a “buy” rating on the software maker’s stock. Rosenblatt Securities’ price target suggests a potential upside of 7.87% from the company’s previous close.

FTNT has been the subject of several other reports. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their target price on Fortinet from $62.00 to $64.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 7th. Citigroup boosted their price target on shares of Fortinet from $66.00 to $76.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, September 13th. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “hold” rating on shares of Fortinet in a research note on Wednesday, August 7th. Guggenheim cut Fortinet from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, July 29th. Finally, Scotiabank increased their price target on Fortinet from $61.00 to $75.00 and gave the company a “sector outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 7th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, twenty-two have assigned a hold rating, ten have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $74.68.

Fortinet Stock Up 0.2 %

Shares of FTNT opened at $78.80 on Thursday. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $78.06 and its 200 day moving average price is $67.48. Fortinet has a 12-month low of $44.12 and a 12-month high of $83.77. The company has a current ratio of 1.32, a quick ratio of 1.22 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.45. The firm has a market cap of $60.27 billion, a P/E ratio of 46.63, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.78 and a beta of 1.00.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, August 6th. The software maker reported $0.57 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.41 by $0.16. Fortinet had a net margin of 23.71% and a negative return on equity of 2,160.10%. The firm had revenue of $1.43 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.40 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $0.31 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 10.9% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Fortinet will post 1.74 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Transactions at Fortinet

In other Fortinet news, CEO Ken Xie sold 23,307 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, October 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $81.89, for a total transaction of $1,908,610.23. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 48,915,530 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,005,692,751.70. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Insiders sold 70,538 shares of company stock valued at $5,403,559 in the last 90 days. 18.00% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Fortinet

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Sarasin & Partners LLP boosted its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 22.4% during the second quarter. Sarasin & Partners LLP now owns 2,163,093 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $130,370,000 after purchasing an additional 395,477 shares during the last quarter. Forsta AP Fonden grew its holdings in Fortinet by 11.8% in the 3rd quarter. Forsta AP Fonden now owns 135,500 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $10,508,000 after buying an additional 14,300 shares during the period. PDS Planning Inc acquired a new position in shares of Fortinet during the 1st quarter valued at about $200,000. Cetera Investment Advisers lifted its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 543.5% during the 1st quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers now owns 157,319 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $10,765,000 after acquiring an additional 132,871 shares during the period. Finally, Sei Investments Co. boosted its position in shares of Fortinet by 10.5% in the first quarter. Sei Investments Co. now owns 138,893 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $9,488,000 after acquiring an additional 13,178 shares during the last quarter. 83.71% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.