Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) Stock Holdings Lifted by First Trust Direct Indexing L.P.

First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. lifted its stake in shares of Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) by 18.6% in the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 15,828 shares of the software maker’s stock after acquiring an additional 2,482 shares during the quarter. First Trust Direct Indexing L.P.’s holdings in Fortinet were worth $1,081,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the stock. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Fortinet in the 4th quarter valued at $203,501,000. Sarasin & Partners LLP purchased a new stake in Fortinet during the first quarter valued at about $120,746,000. Public Sector Pension Investment Board boosted its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 358.1% in the third quarter. Public Sector Pension Investment Board now owns 1,644,139 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $96,478,000 after buying an additional 1,285,197 shares during the period. Parnassus Investments LLC increased its position in shares of Fortinet by 223.6% in the fourth quarter. Parnassus Investments LLC now owns 1,366,467 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $79,979,000 after acquiring an additional 944,161 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Carmignac Gestion raised its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 3,383.8% during the fourth quarter. Carmignac Gestion now owns 720,902 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $42,194,000 after acquiring an additional 700,209 shares during the period. 83.71% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms recently commented on FTNT. Cantor Fitzgerald lowered their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $65.00 to $55.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, May 3rd. Royal Bank of Canada lowered their price target on Fortinet from $71.00 to $68.00 and set a “sector perform” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, May 3rd. Susquehanna reduced their price objective on Fortinet from $80.00 to $65.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, May 6th. Truist Financial lowered their target price on Fortinet from $80.00 to $70.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, May 3rd. Finally, Evercore ISI reduced their price target on shares of Fortinet from $72.00 to $67.00 and set an “in-line” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, May 3rd. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twenty have assigned a hold rating and eleven have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $70.03.

Fortinet Trading Down 0.5 %

NASDAQ:FTNT opened at $60.73 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $46.39 billion, a PE ratio of 39.69, a PEG ratio of 2.96 and a beta of 0.98. Fortinet, Inc. has a 1 year low of $44.12 and a 1 year high of $81.24. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $60.27 and its 200 day simple moving average is $63.78.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 2nd. The software maker reported $0.43 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.38 by $0.05. Fortinet had a negative return on equity of 2,235.48% and a net margin of 22.23%. The company had revenue of $1.35 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.34 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $0.29 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 7.2% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts anticipate that Fortinet, Inc. will post 1.47 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Ken Xie sold 23,992 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, April 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $64.75, for a total value of $1,553,482.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 48,660,648 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,150,776,958. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In related news, CEO Ken Xie sold 23,992 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, April 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $64.75, for a total value of $1,553,482.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 48,660,648 shares in the company, valued at $3,150,776,958. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director William H. Neukom purchased 586 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, June 6th. The shares were purchased at an average price of $59.55 per share, for a total transaction of $34,896.30. Following the completion of the purchase, the director now directly owns 295,778 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $17,613,579.90. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 91,638 shares of company stock valued at $5,705,568 in the last three months. Company insiders own 18.00% of the company’s stock.

Fortinet 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.