Scotiabank Raises Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) Price Target to $115.00

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) had its price objective raised by Scotiabank from $110.00 to $115.00 in a research note published on Tuesday morning,Benzinga reports. Scotiabank currently has a sector outperform rating on the software maker’s stock.

Several other analysts have also recently issued reports on the company. Barclays upped their price objective on Fortinet from $85.00 to $95.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, November 8th. Mizuho upped their price target on shares of Fortinet from $68.00 to $78.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research note on Friday, December 13th. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $100.00 to $114.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 2nd. Rosenblatt Securities upped their target price on shares of Fortinet from $90.00 to $100.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, November 20th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets lifted their price target on Fortinet from $88.00 to $100.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, November 19th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seventeen have issued a hold rating, fourteen have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $96.33.

Fortinet Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:FTNT opened at $97.20 on Tuesday. The firm has a market cap of $74.50 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 49.09, a P/E/G ratio of 2.49 and a beta of 1.00. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $95.58 and a 200 day moving average price of $81.10. Fortinet has a fifty-two week low of $54.57 and a fifty-two week high of $101.00. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.09, a quick ratio of 1.25 and a current ratio of 1.34.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 7th. The software maker reported $0.56 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.43 by $0.13. Fortinet had a return on equity of 973.30% and a net margin of 26.79%. The firm had revenue of $1.51 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.48 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $0.35 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Fortinet will post 1.95 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, Director William H. Neukom acquired 355 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, December 6th. The shares were purchased at an average price of $98.50 per share, with a total value of $34,967.50. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 150,245 shares in the company, valued at approximately $14,799,132.50. This represents a 0.24 % increase in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Ken Xie sold 23,044 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, January 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $93.32, for a total transaction of $2,150,466.08. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 49,039,698 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $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 sold a total of 67,860 shares of company stock valued at $6,469,056 over the last three months. 18.00% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Fortinet

Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. State Street Corp increased its position in Fortinet by 2.9% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,281,279 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $2,115,663,000 after buying an additional 766,135 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Fortinet by 2.4% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 14,883,012 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $1,151,097,000 after acquiring an additional 354,692 shares during the last quarter. Marshall Wace LLP raised its position in shares of Fortinet by 198.5% in 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. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC boosted its stake in Fortinet by 10.3% in the 3rd quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 5,787,931 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $448,854,000 after purchasing an additional 542,727 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its position in Fortinet by 1.8% during the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 3,817,859 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $296,075,000 after purchasing an additional 68,852 shares during the last quarter. 83.71% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.