Meritas Wealth Management LLC Takes $226,000 Position in Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT)

Meritas Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm acquired 3,303 shares of the software maker’s stock, valued at approximately $226,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. LPL Financial LLC boosted its holdings in Fortinet by 34.6% during the third quarter. LPL Financial LLC now owns 312,720 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $18,350,000 after buying an additional 80,392 shares in the last quarter. O Shaughnessy Asset Management LLC boosted its holdings in Fortinet by 1.3% during the third quarter. O Shaughnessy Asset Management LLC now owns 40,529 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $2,378,000 after buying an additional 526 shares in the last quarter. Mather Group LLC. boosted its holdings in Fortinet by 79.6% during the third quarter. Mather Group LLC. now owns 9,562 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $561,000 after buying an additional 4,237 shares in the last quarter. Treasurer of the State of North Carolina boosted its holdings in Fortinet by 0.4% during the third quarter. Treasurer of the State of North Carolina now owns 327,979 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $19,246,000 after buying an additional 1,226 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Tower Research Capital LLC TRC boosted its holdings in Fortinet by 77.0% during the third quarter. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC now owns 65,528 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $3,845,000 after buying an additional 28,504 shares in the last quarter. 83.71% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insider Activity

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

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities research analysts recently commented on FTNT shares. Wedbush restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $78.00 price target on shares of Fortinet in a research report on Wednesday, May 22nd. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Fortinet from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, June 22nd. Scotiabank reduced their price target on shares of Fortinet from $90.00 to $80.00 and set a “sector outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, May 3rd. Royal Bank of Canada reduced their price target on shares of Fortinet from $71.00 to $68.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, May 3rd. Finally, Barclays reduced their price target on shares of Fortinet from $80.00 to $75.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, May 3rd. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twenty-one have issued a hold rating and ten have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $70.03.

Fortinet Price Performance

Shares of Fortinet stock traded up $0.23 during trading on Friday, hitting $60.27. 7,987,420 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 5,622,995. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 13.38, a current ratio of 1.20 and a quick ratio of 1.08. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $60.58 and its 200 day moving average price is $63.66. Fortinet, Inc. has a twelve month low of $44.12 and a twelve month high of $81.24. The company has a market cap of $46.04 billion, a PE ratio of 39.39, a PEG ratio of 2.94 and a beta of 0.98.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, May 2nd. The software maker reported $0.43 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.38 by $0.05. Fortinet had a net margin of 22.23% and a negative return on equity of 2,235.48%. The business had revenue of $1.35 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.34 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.29 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 7.2% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts forecast that Fortinet, Inc. will post 1.46 earnings per share for the current year.

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.