Fortinet, Inc. $FTNT Stock: Inspire Trust Co. N.A. Decreases Stake

Inspire Trust Co. N.A. lessened its holdings in shares of Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) by 20.6% during the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 38,500 shares of the software maker’s stock after selling 10,000 shares during the quarter. Inspire Trust Co. N.A.’s holdings in Fortinet were worth $6,882,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

A number of other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the business. Birinyi Associates Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Fortinet during the 3rd quarter valued at about $4,338,000. Transamerica Financial Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of Fortinet during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $492,000. Wealth Enhancement Trust Services Inc. grew its stake in shares of Fortinet by 83.8% during the 3rd quarter. Wealth Enhancement Trust Services Inc. now owns 22,326 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $3,991,000 after acquiring an additional 10,180 shares during the period. Farther Finance Advisors LLC increased its holdings in Fortinet by 35.5% in the 3rd quarter. Farther Finance Advisors LLC now owns 32,402 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $5,792,000 after acquiring an additional 8,488 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Perpetual Ltd increased its holdings in Fortinet by 2,214.9% in the 3rd quarter. Perpetual Ltd now owns 167,738 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $29,985,000 after acquiring an additional 160,492 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 83.71% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have commented on FTNT. DZ Bank cut shares of Fortinet from a “hold” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 30th. Sanford C. Bernstein reiterated a “market perform” rating and issued a $145.00 price target (up from $102.00) on shares of Fortinet in a research report on Thursday, September 17th. Zacks Research cut shares of Fortinet from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, November 2nd. Barclays decreased their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $210.00 to $155.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, October 29th. Finally, Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Fortinet from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Saturday, October 10th. Eleven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, twenty-four have given a Hold rating and six have issued a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Fortinet currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $150.44.

Fortinet Stock Up 0.9%

Shares of FTNT opened at $123.57 on Wednesday. The business’s 50 day moving average is $166.24 and its 200 day moving average is $129.96. The company has a market capitalization of $90.79 billion, a PE ratio of 40.12, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.35 and a beta of 1.04. Fortinet, Inc. has a 12-month low of $73.55 and a 12-month high of $197.13. The company has a current ratio of 1.40, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.22.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 28th. The software maker reported $0.91 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.86 by $0.05. Fortinet had a return on equity of 152.72% and a net margin of 28.96%. The business had revenue of $2.08 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.06 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $0.74 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 20.5% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts expect that Fortinet, Inc. will post 3.21 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Fortinet

In other news, CEO Ken Xie sold 161,483 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $129.31, for a total value of $20,881,366.73. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 52,972,372 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $6,849,857,423.32. The trade was a 0.30% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. 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, VP Michael Xie sold 3,121 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $129.49, for a total transaction of $404,138.29. Following the transaction, the vice president owned 9,918,360 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,284,328,436.40. This represents a 0.03% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. 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. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 221,304 shares of company stock valued at $30,675,309. 17.60% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Fortinet Profile

Fortinet, Inc. is a cybersecurity and networking company that provides products and services to help organizations protect their networks, devices, applications, and cloud environments. Its offerings include FortiGate next-generation firewalls, the FortiOS operating system, and security, endpoint, cloud, and secure access service edge (SASE) solutions. The company’s Security Fabric platform is designed to integrate security and networking products and support centralized visibility and management.