Anchor Investment Management LLC Buys 7,116 Shares of Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT)

Anchor Investment Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) by 19.2% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 44,100 shares of the software maker’s stock after acquiring an additional 7,116 shares during the quarter. Anchor Investment Management LLC’s holdings in Fortinet were worth $2,658,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other large investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in Fortinet by 1.2% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 68,052,487 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $4,648,665,000 after buying an additional 779,271 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its holdings in Fortinet by 664.8% in the 1st quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 35,137,089 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $2,400,215,000 after acquiring an additional 30,542,551 shares during the last quarter. Swedbank AB lifted its position in Fortinet by 1.7% in the 2nd quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 8,156,797 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $491,610,000 after acquiring an additional 134,366 shares in the last quarter. Marshall Wace LLP boosted its stake in Fortinet by 198.5% during the 2nd quarter. Marshall Wace LLP now owns 6,238,856 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $376,016,000 after purchasing an additional 4,148,520 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Van ECK Associates Corp increased its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 94.9% in the 2nd quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 5,755,599 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $346,890,000 after purchasing an additional 2,802,446 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 83.71% of the company’s stock.

Fortinet Trading Up 1.4 %

Shares of FTNT opened at $77.59 on Thursday. The firm has a market cap of $59.27 billion, a P/E ratio of 50.71, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.77 and a beta of 1.00. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.45, a current ratio of 1.32 and a quick ratio of 1.22. Fortinet, Inc. has a 1 year low of $44.12 and a 1 year high of $78.50. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $71.88 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $65.60.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, August 6th. The software maker reported $0.57 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.41 by $0.16. Fortinet had a net margin of 23.71% and a negative return on equity of 2,160.10%. The company had revenue of $1.43 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.40 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $0.31 earnings per share. Fortinet’s quarterly revenue was up 10.9% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts expect that Fortinet, Inc. will post 1.72 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities research analysts recently commented on FTNT shares. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft increased their price objective on Fortinet from $71.00 to $75.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 7th. Barclays reduced their price target on shares of Fortinet from $75.00 to $70.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, July 11th. Susquehanna increased their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $65.00 to $70.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 8th. Wells Fargo & Company raised their target price on shares of Fortinet from $62.00 to $64.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 7th. Finally, UBS Group boosted their target price on shares of Fortinet from $69.00 to $70.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 7th. Twenty-three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, ten have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Fortinet has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $71.57.

Insider Buying and Selling at Fortinet

In other news, CEO Ken Xie sold 23,538 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, September 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $74.94, for a total transaction of $1,763,937.72. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 48,878,806 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,662,977,721.64. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In other news, CEO Ken Xie sold 23,538 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, September 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $74.94, for a total transaction of $1,763,937.72. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 48,878,806 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,662,977,721.64. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, VP Michael Xie sold 24,712 shares of Fortinet stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $56.11, for a total value of $1,386,590.32. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now owns 10,847,018 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $608,626,179.98. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 96,210 shares of company stock worth $6,337,801 in the last quarter. 18.00% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

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.