Fortinet’s (FTNT) “Hold” Rating Reaffirmed at Needham & Company LLC

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT)‘s stock had its “hold” rating restated by analysts at Needham & Company LLC in a research note issued to investors on Friday,Benzinga reports.

Several other research analysts also recently weighed in on the company. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their target price on Fortinet from $90.00 to $103.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 18th. StockNews.com upgraded Fortinet from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, October 25th. Rosenblatt Securities lifted their target price on Fortinet from $115.00 to $125.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday. Robert W. Baird restated a “neutral” rating and issued a $112.00 price target (up from $105.00) on shares of Fortinet in a research note on Monday. Finally, HSBC upgraded Fortinet from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price target for the company from $83.00 to $111.00 in a research note on Monday, November 11th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nineteen have given a hold rating, thirteen have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Fortinet has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $98.07.

Fortinet Trading Down 0.3 %

FTNT opened at $104.72 on Friday. Fortinet has a one year low of $54.57 and a one year high of $105.82. The company has a market cap of $80.26 billion, a P/E ratio of 52.89, a PEG ratio of 2.65 and a beta of 1.01. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.09, a quick ratio of 1.25 and a current ratio of 1.34. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $97.13 and its 200-day simple moving average is $84.21.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 6th. The software maker reported $0.67 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.60 by $0.07. Fortinet had a return on equity of 973.30% and a net margin of 26.79%. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Fortinet will post 1.95 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Fortinet

In other Fortinet news, Director William H. Neukom purchased 355 shares of Fortinet stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, December 6th. The stock was purchased at an average price of $98.50 per share, with a total value of $34,967.50. Following the completion of the acquisition, the director now owns 150,245 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $14,799,132.50. This trade represents a 0.24 % increase in their position. The purchase was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Keith Jensen sold 4,250 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $90.83, for a total value of $386,027.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 4,689 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $425,901.87. This represents a 47.54 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 67,860 shares of company stock valued at $6,469,056 over the last quarter. Company insiders own 18.00% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of FTNT. State Street Corp raised its stake in Fortinet by 2.9% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,281,279 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $2,115,663,000 after buying an additional 766,135 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its stake in Fortinet by 2.4% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 14,883,012 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $1,151,097,000 after buying an additional 354,692 shares in the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC raised its stake in Fortinet by 10.3% during the third quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 5,787,931 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $448,854,000 after buying an additional 542,727 shares in the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its stake in Fortinet by 4.1% during the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 3,974,625 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $375,523,000 after buying an additional 156,766 shares in the last quarter. Finally, FMR LLC raised its stake in Fortinet by 276.3% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 3,685,230 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $285,790,000 after buying an additional 2,705,767 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 83.71% 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.