Ken Xie Sells 158,485 Shares of Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) Stock

Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) CEO Ken Xie sold 158,485 shares of Fortinet stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $86.51, for a total transaction of $13,710,537.35. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 51,391,879 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,445,911,452.29. This trade represents a 0.31% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link.

Fortinet Trading Up 0.9%

Fortinet stock opened at $85.99 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24, a quick ratio of 1.24 and a current ratio of 1.33. The firm has a market cap of $65.89 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 34.26, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.17 and a beta of 1.09. Fortinet, Inc. has a 1 year low of $70.12 and a 1 year high of $114.82. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $83.07 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $93.28.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, November 5th. The software maker reported $0.74 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.63 by $0.11. The firm had revenue of $1.72 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.70 billion. Fortinet had a net margin of 30.60% and a return on equity of 111.46%. Fortinet has set its FY 2025 guidance at 2.660-2.700 EPS. Q4 2025 guidance at 0.730-0.750 EPS. On average, research analysts predict that Fortinet, Inc. will post 2.09 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Fortinet

A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of FTNT. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Fortinet during the 2nd quarter valued at $1,640,900,000. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Fortinet by 5.2% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 71,662,404 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $6,898,223,000 after buying an additional 3,546,934 shares during the period. AQR Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Fortinet by 40.9% during the 1st quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 5,971,648 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $561,156,000 after buying an additional 1,733,670 shares during the period. Nuveen LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Fortinet during the 1st quarter valued at $153,576,000. Finally, UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC boosted its stake in shares of Fortinet by 17.1% during the 1st quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC now owns 7,016,467 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $675,405,000 after buying an additional 1,026,277 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 83.71% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts recently commented on FTNT shares. Stifel Nicolaus decreased their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $95.00 to $85.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, August 7th. TD Cowen reaffirmed a “hold” rating and issued a $105.00 price objective on shares of Fortinet in a research note on Thursday, August 7th. Evercore ISI decreased their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $105.00 to $78.00 and set an “in-line” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, August 8th. Rosenblatt Securities reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $85.00 price objective (down previously from $125.00) on shares of Fortinet in a research note on Thursday, August 7th. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada decreased their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $110.00 to $95.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, August 7th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eight have assigned a Buy rating, twenty-five have assigned a Hold rating and two have issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $97.03.

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.