Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) Rating Lowered to Hold at Zacks Research

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) was downgraded by stock analysts at Zacks Research from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note issued to investors on Monday, Zacks reports.

Other research analysts have also issued research reports about the stock. Sanford C. Bernstein restated a “market perform” rating and set a $145.00 price target (up from $102.00) on shares of Fortinet in a report on Thursday, September 17th. Evercore set a $165.00 price target on shares of Fortinet in a research note on Thursday, July 30th. Royal Bank Of Canada set a $165.00 target price on Fortinet and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 29th. Barclays cut their target price on Fortinet from $210.00 to $155.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, October 29th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $118.00 to $140.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a research report on Friday, October 23rd. Ten investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, twenty-five have given a Hold rating and six have assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Fortinet currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $147.94.

Fortinet Stock Performance

NASDAQ FTNT opened at $128.11 on Monday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.28, a current ratio of 1.40 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.22. The company has a market capitalization of $94.12 billion, a P/E ratio of 41.59, a P/E/G ratio of 2.43 and a beta of 1.04. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $170.32 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $128.78. Fortinet has a 12-month low of $73.55 and a 12-month high of $197.13.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 28th. The software maker reported $0.91 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.86 by $0.05. Fortinet had a return on equity of 152.72% and a net margin of 28.96%. The firm had revenue of $2.08 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.06 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $0.74 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 20.5% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts anticipate that Fortinet will post 3.20 earnings per share for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Fortinet news, CEO Ken Xie sold 161,483 shares of Fortinet stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $129.31, for a total value of $20,881,366.73. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 52,972,372 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $6,849,857,423.32. The trade was a 0.30% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. Also, COO John Whittle sold 2,835 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $168.74, for a total transaction of $478,377.90. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer directly owned 96,987 shares in the company, valued at approximately $16,365,586.38. This trade represents a 2.84% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold a total of 221,304 shares of company stock valued at $30,675,309 over the last quarter. 17.60% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. BlackRock Inc. purchased a new position in Fortinet during the second quarter valued at $9,561,650,000. Bank of New York Mellon Corp bought a new stake in shares of Fortinet during the 2nd quarter valued at $1,432,842,000. Legal & General Group Plc purchased a new stake in shares of Fortinet in the 2nd quarter worth about $979,062,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership grew its position in shares of Fortinet by 87.4% in the 1st quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 9,651,024 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $788,682,000 after buying an additional 4,500,194 shares during the period. Finally, Bank of America Corp DE purchased a new stake in shares of Fortinet in the 2nd quarter worth about $656,852,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 83.71% of the company’s stock.

Trending Headlines about Fortinet

Here are the key news stories impacting Fortinet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Fortinet reported quarterly revenue and earnings above consensus and raised its 2026 outlook. Product sales reportedly grew 37%, and longer-term cybersecurity demand tied to AI remains a potential tailwind. Fortinet sinks despite beating and raising guidance
• Neutral Sentiment: CEO Ken Xie and VP Michael Xie sold shares through pre-arranged 10b5-1 plans to cover tax withholding on vested awards. The sales were small relative to their remaining holdings, making them a limited signal about the company’s prospects. Fortinet VP share sale
• Negative Sentiment: Despite the earnings beat, investors have reportedly been unsettled by slower-than-expected product growth and a weaker service outlook. Fortinet’s recent steep selloff has also coincided with broader weakness in technology and cybersecurity stocks, adding pressure to FTNT. Fortinet earnings analysis and service outlook Why Fortinet stock is falling

Fortinet Company Profile

Fortinet, Inc develops cybersecurity products and services designed to protect networks, endpoints, applications, cloud environments and operational technology systems. The company’s portfolio includes next-generation firewalls, secure networking products, endpoint security, web application security, email security, identity and access solutions, and security information and event management tools.

Its product offerings include FortiGate network security appliances and cloud-based firewalls, along with FortiSwitch, FortiAP and FortiExtender solutions for secure connectivity.