Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) Trading Down 1.3% – Here’s What Happened

Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT)’s stock price traded down 1.3% during mid-day trading on Wednesday . The stock traded as low as $103.72 and last traded at $105.09. 1,321,950 shares were traded during mid-day trading, a decline of 73% from the average session volume of 4,823,281 shares. The stock had previously closed at $106.48.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts have weighed in on FTNT shares. Raymond James reaffirmed a “market perform” rating on shares of Fortinet in a research report on Tuesday, January 14th. Truist Financial restated a “buy” rating and issued a $105.00 price objective (up from $85.00) on shares of Fortinet in a report on Wednesday, November 20th. HSBC raised shares of Fortinet from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their target price for the company from $83.00 to $111.00 in a research report on Monday, November 11th. Hsbc Global Res raised shares of Fortinet from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, November 11th. Finally, Citigroup lifted their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $100.00 to $101.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, January 17th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nineteen have assigned a hold rating, twelve have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $103.72.

Fortinet Price Performance

The stock has a fifty day moving average of $101.69 and a 200 day moving average of $90.45. 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 stock has a market cap of $82.39 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 47.42, a P/E/G ratio of 4.19 and a beta of 1.01.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 6th. The software maker reported $0.67 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.60 by $0.07. Fortinet had a net margin of 29.30% and a return on equity of 256.53%. On average, analysts expect that Fortinet, Inc. will post 2.09 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Fortinet

In related news, Director William H. Neukom purchased 355 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, December 6th. The stock was bought at an average cost of $98.50 per share, with a total value of $34,967.50. Following the completion of the acquisition, the director now owns 150,245 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $14,799,132.50. The trade was a 0.24 % increase in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CFO Keith Jensen sold 23,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $113.56, for a total transaction of $2,668,660.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 4,736 shares in the company, valued at $537,820.16. The trade was a 83.23 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 87,120 shares of company stock worth $8,991,409. Insiders own 18.00% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Fortinet by 1.1% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 68,115,470 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $6,435,550,000 after purchasing an additional 730,994 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp raised its stake in shares of Fortinet by 2.9% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,281,279 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $2,115,663,000 after buying an additional 766,135 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Fortinet by 2.6% during the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 15,270,913 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $1,440,648,000 after buying an additional 387,901 shares in the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. grew its stake in Fortinet by 31.3% in the 4th quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 8,388,693 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $792,564,000 after acquiring an additional 2,000,888 shares during the period. Finally, Norges Bank purchased a new stake in Fortinet in the 4th quarter worth $724,048,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 83.71% of the company’s stock.

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.