Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) Stock Gets Downgrade from Arete Research

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) was downgraded by investment analysts at Arete Research from a “buy” rating to a “sell” rating in a report issued on Wednesday, Marketbeat Ratings reports. They presently have a $117.00 price target on the software maker’s stock. Arete Research’s target price suggests a potential downside of 31.55% from the stock’s previous close.

FTNT has been the topic of a number of other reports. Stephens raised their price target on shares of Fortinet from $160.00 to $165.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, July 30th. Wolfe Research set a $175.00 price objective on shares of Fortinet in a research note on Thursday, July 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on shares of Fortinet from $100.00 to $118.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 30th. Citigroup increased their target price on shares of Fortinet from $165.00 to $185.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 30th. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft restated a “hold” rating and issued a $160.00 target price (up from $100.00) on shares of Fortinet in a research note on Thursday, July 30th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eleven have issued a Buy rating, twenty-one have assigned a Hold rating and six have assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $161.75.

Fortinet Price Performance

Shares of FTNT opened at $170.93 on Wednesday. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $169.65 and a 200-day moving average price of $144.56. Fortinet has a fifty-two week low of $73.55 and a fifty-two week high of $197.13. The stock has a market capitalization of $125.41 billion, a PE ratio of 60.19, a PEG ratio of 3.20 and a beta of 1.03. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32, a quick ratio of 1.19 and a current ratio of 1.28.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 29th. The software maker reported $0.90 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.75 by $0.15. The company had revenue of $2.05 billion for 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%. Fortinet’s revenue was up 25.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company posted $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. Equities analysts predict that Fortinet will post 3.10 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Fortinet

In related 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 value of $26,266,662.12. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 52,972,372 shares in the company, valued at $8,616,486,029.52. This trade represents a 0.30% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. 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 2,835 shares of Fortinet stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $168.74, for a total transaction of $478,377.90. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer owned 96,987 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $16,365,586.38. This trade represents a 2.84% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 221,303 shares of company stock worth $36,164,034. Insiders own 17.60% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of FTNT. Puff Wealth Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 3.4% during the third quarter. Puff Wealth Management LLC now owns 1,660 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $297,000 after buying an additional 54 shares during the last quarter. Columbus Macro LLC raised its stake in Fortinet by 1.9% in the 3rd quarter. Columbus Macro LLC now owns 2,981 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $533,000 after acquiring an additional 55 shares during the last quarter. Hutchens & Kramer Investment Management Group LLC raised its stake in Fortinet by 1.9% in the 3rd quarter. Hutchens & Kramer Investment Management Group LLC now owns 3,525 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $630,000 after acquiring an additional 66 shares during the last quarter. Kintegral Advisory LLC lifted its position in Fortinet by 0.6% during the 3rd quarter. Kintegral Advisory LLC now owns 12,648 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $2,261,000 after acquiring an additional 71 shares during the period. Finally, Dynamic Wealth Strategies LLC lifted its position in Fortinet by 4.8% during the 3rd quarter. Dynamic Wealth Strategies LLC now owns 1,539 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $275,000 after acquiring an additional 71 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 83.71% of the company’s stock.

Fortinet Company Profile

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.