Legal & General Group Plc Decreases Holdings in Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT)

Legal & General Group Plc trimmed its stake in Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) by 23.7% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 5,800,235 shares of the software maker’s stock after selling 1,798,519 shares during the period. Legal & General Group Plc’s holdings in Fortinet were worth $548,006,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Edmond DE Rothschild Holding S.A. purchased a new position in Fortinet in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $27,000. Oarsman Capital Inc. raised its stake in shares of Fortinet by 188.9% in the fourth quarter. Oarsman Capital Inc. now owns 416 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $39,000 after buying an additional 272 shares during the period. Graney & King LLC purchased a new position in shares of Fortinet during the 4th quarter valued at $43,000. Golden State Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Fortinet during the 4th quarter worth $46,000. Finally, Runnymede Capital Advisors Inc. purchased a new stake in Fortinet in the 4th quarter worth about $56,000. 83.71% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Ken Xie sold 23,044 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, January 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $93.32, for a total value of $2,150,466.08. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 49,039,698 shares in the company, valued at $4,576,384,617.36. This trade represents a 0.05 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, VP Michael Xie sold 326,784 shares of Fortinet stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $98.17, for a total value of $32,080,385.28. Following the sale, the vice president now owns 11,000,068 shares in the company, valued at $1,079,876,675.56. This represents a 2.89 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 599,988 shares of company stock worth $59,094,530. 18.00% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms have commented on FTNT. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on shares of Fortinet from $99.00 to $105.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Raymond James reaffirmed a “market perform” rating on shares of Fortinet in a report on Tuesday, January 14th. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their target price on shares of Fortinet from $97.00 to $115.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a report on Friday, February 7th. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price target on Fortinet from $85.00 to $105.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, February 7th. Finally, KeyCorp raised Fortinet from a “sector weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $115.00 price objective on the stock in a report on Thursday, December 19th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, twenty have given a hold rating, eleven have issued a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Fortinet presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $105.77.

Fortinet Stock Performance

Shares of FTNT stock opened at $88.00 on Tuesday. The company has a market capitalization of $67.67 billion, a P/E ratio of 38.94, a PEG ratio of 4.19 and a beta of 1.09. Fortinet, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $54.57 and a fifty-two week high of $114.82. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.67, a quick ratio of 1.39 and a current ratio of 1.47. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $102.41 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $94.09.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 6th. The software maker reported $0.67 earnings per share 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%. Analysts expect that Fortinet, Inc. will post 2.09 earnings per share for the current year.

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.