Insider Selling: Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) CEO Sells 206,000 Shares of Stock

Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) CEO Ken Xie sold 206,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, March 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $96.93, for a total value of $19,967,580.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 51,391,879 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,981,414,831.47. The trade was a 0.40 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink.

Ken Xie also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Wednesday, January 15th, Ken Xie sold 23,044 shares of Fortinet stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $93.32, for a total value of $2,150,466.08.
• On Tuesday, December 17th, Ken Xie sold 22,916 shares of Fortinet stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $97.93, for a total value of $2,244,163.88.

Fortinet Trading Up 2.3 %

Shares of NASDAQ:FTNT traded up $2.24 during midday trading on Tuesday, hitting $98.28. The company had a trading volume of 6,310,715 shares, compared to its average volume of 4,826,094. Fortinet, Inc. has a 12 month low of $54.57 and a 12 month high of $114.82. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.39 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.67. The stock has a market cap of $75.57 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 43.49, a PEG ratio of 4.19 and a beta of 0.97. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $102.15 and a 200 day simple moving average of $91.36.

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

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several analysts have recently issued reports on FTNT shares. TD Cowen upped their price target on Fortinet from $90.00 to $105.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, November 19th. Bank of America raised their price objective on Fortinet from $87.00 to $104.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, November 19th. Robert W. Baird reiterated a “neutral” rating and issued a $112.00 price objective (up previously from $105.00) on shares of Fortinet in a research report on Monday, February 3rd. Mizuho increased their target price on Fortinet from $68.00 to $78.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a report on Friday, December 13th. Finally, Guggenheim reissued a “neutral” rating on shares of Fortinet in a report on Friday, February 7th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, twenty have assigned a hold rating, eleven have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $103.72.

Institutional Trading of Fortinet

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. raised 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 during the period. State Street Corp increased its position in shares of Fortinet by 2.9% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,281,279 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $2,115,663,000 after acquiring an additional 766,135 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its position in shares of Fortinet by 2.6% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 15,270,913 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $1,440,648,000 after acquiring an additional 387,901 shares during the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. increased its position in shares of Fortinet by 31.3% in the fourth 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 last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Fortinet in the fourth quarter valued at about $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.