Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) Shares Sold by Clearbridge Investments LLC

Clearbridge Investments LLC trimmed its stake in Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) by 13.8% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 1,032,932 shares of the software maker’s stock after selling 165,728 shares during the quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC’s holdings in Fortinet were worth $97,591,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. FMR LLC boosted its stake in Fortinet by 276.3% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 3,685,230 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $285,790,000 after purchasing an additional 2,705,767 shares during the period. Townsquare Capital LLC boosted its position in shares of Fortinet by 32.7% during the third quarter. Townsquare Capital LLC now owns 11,082 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $859,000 after buying an additional 2,729 shares during the period. Public Sector Pension Investment Board grew its holdings in Fortinet by 14.7% in the 3rd quarter. Public Sector Pension Investment Board now owns 25,760 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $1,998,000 after buying an additional 3,300 shares in the last quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors increased its position in Fortinet by 21.0% in the 3rd quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 50,096 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $3,885,000 after acquiring an additional 8,708 shares during the period. Finally, Erste Asset Management GmbH bought a new stake in Fortinet during the 3rd quarter valued at $93,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 83.71% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Fortinet

In other Fortinet news, CFO Keith Jensen sold 23,500 shares of Fortinet stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $113.56, for a total transaction of $2,668,660.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 4,736 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $537,820.16. This trade represents a 83.23 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Ken Xie sold 23,044 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, January 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $93.32, for a total transaction of $2,150,466.08. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 49,039,698 shares in the company, valued at $4,576,384,617.36. This trade represents a 0.05 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 599,988 shares of company stock valued at $59,094,530 in the last 90 days. 18.00% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms have recently issued reports on FTNT. Scotiabank increased their price target on Fortinet from $115.00 to $135.00 and gave the stock a “sector outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, February 7th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on shares of Fortinet from $99.00 to $105.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their price target on shares of Fortinet from $103.00 to $115.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, February 7th. Royal Bank of Canada increased their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $97.00 to $115.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a report on Friday, February 7th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group dropped their target price on Fortinet from $115.00 to $105.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a report on Monday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nineteen have given 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, Fortinet presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $105.69.

Fortinet Stock Down 0.4 %

Shares of NASDAQ:FTNT opened at $96.26 on Tuesday. Fortinet, Inc. has a 52 week low of $54.57 and a 52 week high of $114.82. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.67, a quick ratio of 1.39 and a current ratio of 1.47. The company has a market cap of $74.02 billion, a PE ratio of 42.59, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.19 and a beta of 0.97. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $103.01 and a 200 day simple moving average of $93.53.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, February 6th. The software maker reported $0.67 EPS for the quarter, topping 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%. As a group, research analysts expect that Fortinet, Inc. will post 2.09 earnings per share for the current year.

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.