Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) Coverage Initiated at Morgan Stanley

Equities researchers at Morgan Stanley started coverage on shares of Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) in a report released on Tuesday. The firm set an “overweight” rating on the software maker’s stock.

Other research analysts also recently issued research reports about the company. Citigroup boosted their price target on Fortinet from $100.00 to $101.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, January 17th. Robert W. Baird reissued a “neutral” rating and issued a $112.00 price objective (up from $105.00) on shares of Fortinet in a research note on Monday, February 3rd. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft raised their price target on shares of Fortinet from $77.00 to $90.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, November 19th. Scotiabank raised their target price on shares of Fortinet from $115.00 to $135.00 and gave the company a “sector outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, February 7th. Finally, Raymond James reissued a “market perform” rating on shares of Fortinet in a report on Tuesday, January 14th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, twenty have issued a hold rating, eleven have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $103.72.

Fortinet Stock Performance

NASDAQ FTNT traded down $0.33 on Tuesday, reaching $96.34. The stock had a trading volume of 261,363 shares, compared to its average volume of 4,768,775. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.67, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.39. The company has a market cap of $74.08 billion, a P/E ratio of 42.57, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.19 and a beta of 0.97. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $102.15 and a two-hundred day moving average of $91.93. Fortinet has a 1-year low of $54.57 and a 1-year high of $114.82.

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 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%. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Fortinet will post 2.09 EPS for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, VP Michael Xie sold 326,784 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $98.17, for a total value of $32,080,385.28. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now owns 11,000,068 shares in the company, valued at $1,079,876,675.56. This trade represents a 2.89 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. 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 sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 49,039,698 shares in the company, valued at $4,576,384,617.36. This represents a 0.05 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 599,988 shares of company stock worth $59,094,530. 18.00% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Fortinet

Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in Fortinet during the 4th quarter valued at $724,048,000. Schroder Investment Management Group purchased a new position in Fortinet in the fourth quarter worth about $389,867,000. FMR LLC grew its stake in shares of Fortinet by 77.2% during the 4th quarter. FMR LLC now owns 6,531,705 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $617,115,000 after purchasing an additional 2,846,475 shares during the period. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership boosted its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 39.3% in the fourth quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 7,622,253 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $720,150,000 after buying an additional 2,151,811 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Bessemer Group Inc. increased its holdings in Fortinet by 72.6% during the fourth quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. now owns 4,906,439 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $463,561,000 after buying an additional 2,064,016 shares during the last quarter. 83.71% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.