Fortinet, Inc. $FTNT Stock: Prairie Advisory LLC Raises Holdings

Prairie Advisory LLC increased its holdings in Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) by 100.0% in the third quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 11,012 shares of the software maker’s stock after purchasing an additional 5,506 shares during the quarter. Prairie Advisory LLC’s holdings in Fortinet were worth $1,969,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in FTNT. BlackRock Inc. acquired a new stake in Fortinet in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $9,561,650,000. First Trust Advisors LP boosted its position in Fortinet by 45.5% during the 1st 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. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership boosted its position in Fortinet by 87.4% during the 1st quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 9,651,024 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $788,682,000 after acquiring an additional 4,500,194 shares during the period. Bank of New York Mellon Corp acquired a new position in Fortinet during the 2nd quarter worth $1,432,842,000. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc bought a new position in shares of Fortinet in the second quarter worth $979,062,000. 83.71% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities research analysts recently commented on the company. William Blair reissued a “market perform” rating on shares of Fortinet in a report on Tuesday, July 21st. Roth Capital raised their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $90.00 to $110.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 29th. Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Fortinet from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday, October 10th. Stephens lifted their price target on shares of Fortinet from $160.00 to $165.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 30th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus set a $175.00 price target on Fortinet and gave the company a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, July 30th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eleven have given a Buy rating, twenty-one have given a Hold rating and five have assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Fortinet presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $160.92.

Fortinet Trading Up 2.1%

Shares of FTNT traded up $3.63 during midday trading on Monday, hitting $172.76. The stock had a trading volume of 1,800,905 shares, compared to its average volume of 5,815,346. Fortinet, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $73.55 and a fifty-two week high of $197.13. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $169.33 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $143.30. The firm has a market cap of $126.75 billion, a P/E ratio of 60.74, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.16 and a beta of 1.03. The company has a current ratio of 1.28, a quick ratio of 1.19 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 29th. The software maker reported $0.90 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.75 by $0.15. Fortinet had a net margin of 28.17% and a return on equity of 191.54%. The business had revenue of $2.05 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.89 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $0.64 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 25.6% compared to the same quarter last year. Fortinet has set its FY 2026 guidance at 3.410-3.470 EPS and its Q3 2026 guidance at 0.830-0.870 EPS. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Fortinet, Inc. will post 3.10 EPS for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Fortinet news, CEO Ken Xie sold 161,482 shares of Fortinet stock in a transaction that occurred 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 transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 52,972,372 shares in the company, valued at approximately $8,616,486,029.52. The trade was a 0.30% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed 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 business’s 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 sale, the chief operating officer directly owned 96,987 shares in the company, valued at approximately $16,045,529.28. This trade represents 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. In the last three months, insiders have sold 221,303 shares of company stock worth $36,164,034. Corporate insiders own 17.60% of the company’s stock.

About Fortinet

Fortinet, Inc develops cybersecurity products and services designed to protect networks, endpoints, applications, cloud environments and operational technology systems. The company’s portfolio includes next-generation firewalls, secure networking products, endpoint security, web application security, email security, identity and access solutions, and security information and event management tools.

Its product offerings include FortiGate network security appliances and cloud-based firewalls, along with FortiSwitch, FortiAP and FortiExtender solutions for secure connectivity.