Robert W. Baird Increases Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) Price Target to $80.00

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) had its price objective lifted by Robert W. Baird from $75.00 to $80.00 in a research report released on Wednesday, Benzinga reports. The firm currently has an outperform rating on the software maker’s stock.

Several other equities research analysts have also recently weighed in on FTNT. Truist Financial decreased their price target on Fortinet from $80.00 to $70.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research note on Friday, May 3rd. Citigroup decreased their price target on Fortinet from $68.00 to $65.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, July 30th. Piper Sandler decreased their price target on Fortinet from $75.00 to $70.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research note on Friday, May 3rd. Jefferies Financial Group decreased their price target on Fortinet from $75.00 to $70.00 and set a hold rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, April 18th. Finally, Scotiabank decreased their target price on Fortinet from $90.00 to $80.00 and set a sector outperform rating for the company in a research note on Friday, May 3rd. Twenty-three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, ten have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $71.31.

Fortinet Stock Up 1.5 %

Fortinet stock traded up $1.01 during trading hours on Wednesday, hitting $69.69. The stock had a trading volume of 6,988,618 shares, compared to its average volume of 5,926,143. The stock has a market cap of $53.24 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 45.55, a P/E/G ratio of 2.79 and a beta of 0.98. Fortinet has a one year low of $44.12 and a one year high of $73.91. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $59.59 and its 200-day simple moving average is $63.74.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, August 6th. The software maker reported $0.57 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.41 by $0.16. The firm had revenue of $1.43 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.40 billion. Fortinet had a negative return on equity of 2,235.48% and a net margin of 22.23%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 10.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company earned $0.31 earnings per share. Research analysts anticipate that Fortinet will post 1.47 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CFO Keith Jensen sold 18,701 shares of Fortinet stock in a transaction on Wednesday, June 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $59.68, for a total transaction of $1,116,075.68. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 4,663 shares in the company, valued at $278,287.84. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. In other Fortinet news, CFO Keith Jensen sold 18,701 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, June 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $59.68, for a total value of $1,116,075.68. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 4,663 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $278,287.84. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, CEO Ken Xie sold 24,267 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, July 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $60.01, for a total value of $1,456,262.67. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 48,777,294 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,927,125,412.94. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 91,915 shares of company stock worth $5,401,638. 18.00% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Fortinet

A number of large investors have recently bought and sold shares of FTNT. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD increased its position in Fortinet by 664.8% in the first 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 buying an additional 30,542,551 shares during the last quarter. Swedbank AB purchased a new position in shares of Fortinet in the first quarter valued at $548,013,000. Norges Bank purchased a new position in shares of Fortinet in the fourth quarter valued at $203,501,000. Van ECK Associates Corp grew its position in shares of Fortinet by 94.9% in the second quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 5,755,599 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $346,890,000 after purchasing an additional 2,802,446 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Sarasin & Partners LLP purchased a new position in shares of Fortinet in the first quarter valued at $120,746,000. 83.71% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.