Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) Trading Down 1.6% – Here’s Why

Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT)’s share price fell 1.6% during trading on Thursday . The company traded as low as $105.11 and last traded at $105.09. 853,312 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 82% from the average session volume of 4,813,215 shares. The stock had previously closed at $106.80.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

FTNT has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $103.00 to $115.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, February 7th. HSBC raised Fortinet from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $83.00 to $111.00 in a research report on Monday, November 11th. Morgan Stanley increased their price target on Fortinet from $105.00 to $106.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday, November 19th. Scotiabank lifted their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $115.00 to $135.00 and gave the stock a “sector outperform” rating in a report on Friday, February 7th. Finally, Hsbc Global Res raised shares of Fortinet from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, November 11th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nineteen have issued a hold rating, twelve have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Fortinet has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $103.72.

Fortinet Stock Performance

The company has a market capitalization of $78.19 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 44.99, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.19 and a beta of 0.97. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.39 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.67. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $101.69 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $90.45.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 6th. The software maker reported $0.67 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.60 by $0.07. Fortinet had a net margin of 29.30% and a return on equity of 256.53%. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Fortinet, Inc. will post 2.09 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CFO Keith Jensen sold 23,500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $113.56, for a total value of $2,668,660.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 4,736 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $537,820.16. This represents a 83.23 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Ken Xie sold 22,916 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, December 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $97.93, for a total transaction of $2,244,163.88. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 48,983,683 shares in the company, valued at $4,796,972,076.19. This represents a 0.05 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 87,120 shares of company stock valued at $8,991,409. Company insiders own 18.00% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of Fortinet in the 4th quarter worth about $724,048,000. Schroder Investment Management Group bought a new position in Fortinet in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $389,867,000. FMR LLC increased its holdings in Fortinet by 77.2% in the fourth quarter. FMR LLC now owns 6,531,705 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $617,115,000 after purchasing an additional 2,846,475 shares during the last quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership boosted its stake in Fortinet by 39.3% during the 4th quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 7,622,253 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $720,150,000 after acquiring an additional 2,151,811 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Bessemer Group Inc. grew its stake in Fortinet by 72.6% in the fourth quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. now owns 4,906,439 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $463,561,000 after acquiring an additional 2,064,016 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 83.71% of the company’s stock.

About Fortinet

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.