First Merchants Corp Grows Holdings in Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT)

First Merchants Corp lifted its stake in shares of Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) by 0.1% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 92,546 shares of the software maker’s stock after acquiring an additional 114 shares during the quarter. First Merchants Corp’s holdings in Fortinet were worth $8,744,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in FTNT. Rooted Wealth Advisors Inc. lifted its position in Fortinet by 30.5% in the 4th quarter. Rooted Wealth Advisors Inc. now owns 4,098 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $393,000 after buying an additional 957 shares during the last quarter. Catalyst Financial Partners LLC raised its stake in shares of Fortinet by 3.9% during the fourth quarter. Catalyst Financial Partners LLC now owns 4,949 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $468,000 after acquiring an additional 188 shares in the last quarter. Asset Management One Co. Ltd. lifted its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 5.2% in the 4th quarter. Asset Management One Co. Ltd. now owns 387,478 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $37,229,000 after acquiring an additional 19,183 shares during the last quarter. Kickstand Ventures LLC. purchased a new stake in shares of Fortinet in the 4th quarter valued at $210,000. Finally, MGB Wealth Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Fortinet in the 4th quarter valued at $221,000. 83.71% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Transactions at Fortinet

In other news, CFO Keith Jensen sold 17,650 shares of Fortinet stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $95.66, for a total value of $1,688,399.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 4,689 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $448,549.74. The trade was a 79.01 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ken Xie sold 23,044 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated 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 owns 49,039,698 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,576,384,617.36. The trade was a 0.05 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 67,860 shares of company stock valued at $6,469,056 in the last ninety days. 18.00% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

FTNT has been the subject of several recent research reports. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their price target on shares of Fortinet from $97.00 to $115.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Friday, February 7th. Citigroup boosted their target price on Fortinet from $100.00 to $101.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, January 17th. Stifel Nicolaus increased their target price on Fortinet from $103.00 to $115.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, February 7th. Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on Fortinet from $105.00 to $106.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, November 19th. Finally, StockNews.com raised Fortinet from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, October 25th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nineteen have assigned a hold rating, twelve have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Fortinet presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $103.72.

Fortinet Stock Performance

Shares of Fortinet stock opened at $109.98 on Friday. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $98.35 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $85.99. The firm has a market capitalization of $84.29 billion, a P/E ratio of 48.66, a P/E/G ratio of 2.75 and a beta of 1.01. The company has a current ratio of 1.34, a quick ratio of 1.25 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.09. Fortinet, Inc. has a 12 month low of $54.57 and a 12 month high of $110.99.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 6th. The software maker reported $0.67 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.60 by $0.07. Fortinet had a net margin of 29.30% and a return on equity of 463.85%. On average, equities analysts forecast that Fortinet, Inc. will post 2.05 earnings per share for the current fiscal 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.