Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) Sets New 12-Month High – Still a Buy?

Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) reached a new 52-week high during trading on Tuesday . The stock traded as high as $174.05 and last traded at $172.4880, with a volume of 2669061 shares traded. The stock had previously closed at $170.18.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on FTNT. Mizuho set a $125.00 price target on shares of Fortinet and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 15th. BTIG Research boosted their price target on Fortinet from $186.00 to $203.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 30th. Bank of America reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of Fortinet in a research report on Monday, July 27th. DZ Bank cut shares of Fortinet from a “hold” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 30th. Finally, Robert W. Baird set a $165.00 price objective on shares of Fortinet in a report on Thursday, July 30th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, ten have issued a Buy rating, nineteen have issued a Hold rating and five have given a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $152.79.

Fortinet Stock Up 0.6%

The firm has a market cap of $126.85 billion, a PE ratio of 60.88, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.24 and a beta of 1.06. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $159.72 and a 200-day simple moving average of $127.97. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32, a current ratio of 1.28 and a quick ratio of 1.19.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 29th. The software maker reported $0.90 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.75 by $0.15. The company had revenue of $2.05 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.89 billion. Fortinet had a net margin of 28.17% and a return on equity of 191.54%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 25.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $0.64 earnings per share. Fortinet has set its FY 2026 guidance at 3.410-3.470 EPS and its Q3 2026 guidance at 0.830-0.870 EPS. Analysts expect that Fortinet, Inc. will post 3.07 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity at Fortinet

In other Fortinet news, CEO Ken Xie sold 161,482 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, August 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $162.66, for a total transaction of $26,266,662.12. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 52,972,372 shares in the company, valued at approximately $8,616,486,029.52. This represents a 0.30% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. Also, COO John Whittle sold 53,865 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, September 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $165.44, for a total transaction of $8,911,425.60. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer directly owned 96,987 shares in the company, valued at approximately $16,045,529.28. The trade was a 35.71% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold a total of 221,303 shares of company stock worth $36,164,034 in the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 17.60% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Fortinet

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in FTNT. BlackRock Inc. purchased a new position in Fortinet during the 2nd quarter valued at about $9,561,650,000. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in Fortinet during the 4th quarter worth approximately $1,152,917,000. Bank of New York Mellon Corp boosted its position in Fortinet by 6.6% in the 4th quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 14,504,597 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $1,151,810,000 after buying an additional 893,190 shares during the period. First Trust Advisors LP increased its position in shares of Fortinet by 45.5% during the first quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 11,506,173 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $940,284,000 after acquiring an additional 3,598,487 shares during the period. Finally, Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership boosted its holdings in Fortinet by 87.4% in the first quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 9,651,024 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $788,682,000 after purchasing an additional 4,500,194 shares during the period. 83.71% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About Fortinet

Fortinet, Inc develops cybersecurity products and services designed to protect enterprise, small and midsize business, service provider, and government networks. Its portfolio covers network security, endpoint protection, cloud security, secure access service edge (SASE), security operations, and zero-trust access.

The company’s offerings include FortiGate next-generation firewalls, FortiSwitch secure networking switches, FortiAP wireless access points, FortiClient endpoint security, and FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer management and analytics tools.