AssuredPartners Investment Advisors LLC Purchases New Stake in Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT)

AssuredPartners Investment Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund acquired 5,591 shares of the software maker’s stock, valued at approximately $528,000.

A number of other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in Fortinet by 1.1% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 68,115,470 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $6,435,550,000 after acquiring an additional 730,994 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp raised its stake in shares of Fortinet by 2.9% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,281,279 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $2,115,663,000 after purchasing an additional 766,135 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 2.4% in 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 purchasing an additional 354,692 shares in the last quarter. Amundi boosted its position in shares of Fortinet by 36.7% during the fourth quarter. Amundi now owns 6,577,467 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $631,700,000 after buying an additional 1,766,860 shares during the last quarter. Finally, UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC grew its holdings 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 worth $448,854,000 after buying an additional 542,727 shares in the last quarter. 83.71% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages have weighed in on FTNT. Scotiabank raised their price objective on Fortinet from $115.00 to $135.00 and gave the company a “sector outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, February 7th. Morgan Stanley assumed coverage on shares of Fortinet in a report on Tuesday, March 18th. They set an “overweight” rating and a $123.00 price target on the stock. Cantor Fitzgerald upped their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $95.00 to $110.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 4th. Mizuho lifted their target price on shares of Fortinet from $68.00 to $78.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a research report on Friday, December 13th. Finally, KeyCorp raised Fortinet from a “sector weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $115.00 target price for the company in a report on Thursday, December 19th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nineteen have assigned a hold rating, twelve have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $105.69.

Insider Transactions at Fortinet

In related news, CEO Ken Xie sold 23,044 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, January 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $93.32, for a total value of $2,150,466.08. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 49,039,698 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,576,384,617.36. This trade represents a 0.05 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CFO Keith Jensen sold 17,660 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $109.18, for a total value of $1,928,118.80. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 4,736 shares in the company, valued at approximately $517,076.48. This represents a 78.85 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 599,988 shares of company stock worth $59,094,530. Insiders own 18.00% of the company’s stock.

Fortinet Stock Performance

NASDAQ FTNT opened at $99.54 on Friday. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $102.92 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $92.99. Fortinet, Inc. has a 12-month low of $54.57 and a 12-month high of $114.82. The firm has a market cap of $76.54 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 44.04, a PEG ratio of 4.19 and a beta of 0.97. The company has a quick ratio of 1.39, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.67.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, February 6th. The software maker reported $0.67 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.60 by $0.07. Fortinet had a return on equity of 256.53% and a net margin of 29.30%. On average, equities analysts forecast that Fortinet, Inc. will post 2.09 EPS for the current year.

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.