Wedbush Lowers Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) Price Target to $100.00

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) had its target price lowered by Wedbush from $120.00 to $100.00 in a note issued to investors on Thursday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has an “outperform” rating on the software maker’s stock. Wedbush’s price target would indicate a potential upside of 34.43% from the company’s current price.

Other research analysts also recently issued research reports about the stock. Morgan Stanley downgraded shares of Fortinet from an “overweight” rating to a “reduce” rating and dropped their target price for the company from $110.00 to $78.00 in a research report on Thursday. Stifel Nicolaus decreased their price target on shares of Fortinet from $115.00 to $95.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, May 8th. KeyCorp lowered shares of Fortinet from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a research note on Thursday. Barclays decreased their price target on shares of Fortinet from $110.00 to $90.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday. Finally, Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Fortinet from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Saturday, July 12th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twenty-five have given a hold rating, eight have issued a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $97.93.

Fortinet Stock Down 1.2%

Shares of NASDAQ FTNT opened at $74.39 on Thursday. The company has a market capitalization of $56.94 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.64, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.59 and a beta of 1.07. Fortinet has a 52-week low of $67.97 and a 52-week high of $114.82. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24, a quick ratio of 1.29 and a current ratio of 1.33. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $101.76 and its 200-day moving average price is $101.60.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, August 6th. The software maker reported $0.64 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.59 by $0.05. Fortinet had a net margin of 30.60% and a return on equity of 111.46%. The company had revenue of $1.63 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.63 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $0.57 EPS. Fortinet’s quarterly revenue was up 13.6% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities analysts forecast that Fortinet will post 2.09 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Fortinet

In other Fortinet news, VP Michael Xie sold 476,596 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $98.48, for a total transaction of $46,935,174.08. Following the sale, the vice president directly owned 9,730,560 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $958,265,548.80. This represents a 4.67% 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, CEO Ken Xie sold 158,486 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $98.48, for a total transaction of $15,607,701.28. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 51,391,879 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,061,072,243.92. This trade represents a 0.31% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders own 17.20% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Fortinet

Several institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in FTNT. Rockefeller Capital Management L.P. lifted its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 4.1% in the second quarter. Rockefeller Capital Management L.P. now owns 505,863 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $53,480,000 after buying an additional 19,920 shares in the last quarter. Citizens Financial Group Inc. RI lifted its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 13.7% in the second quarter. Citizens Financial Group Inc. RI now owns 14,024 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $1,483,000 after buying an additional 1,690 shares in the last quarter. Avantax Advisory Services Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 45.5% in the second quarter. Avantax Advisory Services Inc. now owns 27,075 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $2,862,000 after buying an additional 8,465 shares in the last quarter. Intech Investment Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 34.6% in the second quarter. Intech Investment Management LLC now owns 763,345 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $80,701,000 after buying an additional 196,325 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Cetera Investment Advisers lifted its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 7.1% in the second quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers now owns 164,728 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $17,415,000 after buying an additional 10,934 shares in the last quarter. 83.71% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.