Daiwa America Downgrades Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) to Hold

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) was downgraded by equities research analysts at Daiwa America from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report issued to clients and investors on Wednesday,Zacks.com reports.

Other equities research analysts also recently issued reports about the stock. Robert W. Baird dropped their price target on shares of Fortinet from $90.00 to $86.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, November 6th. Citigroup downgraded Fortinet from a “neutral” rating to a “mixed” rating in a research report on Monday, October 20th. Scotiabank reduced their target price on Fortinet from $115.00 to $85.00 and set a “sector outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, August 7th. BMO Capital Markets dropped their price target on Fortinet from $110.00 to $90.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, August 7th. Finally, Erste Group Bank lowered shares of Fortinet from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, August 14th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, six have issued a Buy rating, twenty-nine have assigned a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $91.62.

Fortinet Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ FTNT opened at $82.14 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24, a current ratio of 1.33 and a quick ratio of 1.24. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $83.47 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $92.74. Fortinet has a one year low of $70.12 and a one year high of $114.82. The firm has a market cap of $61.08 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.73, a P/E/G ratio of 3.17 and a beta of 1.08.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, November 5th. The software maker reported $0.74 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.63 by $0.11. Fortinet had a net margin of 30.60% and a return on equity of 111.46%. The company had revenue of $1.72 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.70 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $0.63 earnings per share. Fortinet’s quarterly revenue was up 14.4% on a year-over-year basis. Fortinet has set its FY 2025 guidance at 2.660-2.700 EPS. Q4 2025 guidance at 0.730-0.750 EPS. On average, equities analysts forecast that Fortinet will post 2.09 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity at Fortinet

In related news, CEO Ken Xie sold 158,485 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction 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 sale, the chief executive officer owned 51,391,879 shares in the company, valued at $4,445,911,452.29. The trade was a 0.31% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, VP Michael Xie sold 3,546 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $86.53, for a total value of $306,835.38. Following the sale, the vice president owned 10,492,018 shares in the company, valued at approximately $907,874,317.54. This trade represents a 0.03% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. 17.20% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Fortinet

Several institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. BNP PARIBAS ASSET MANAGEMENT Holding S.A. raised its stake in Fortinet by 6.8% during the second quarter. BNP PARIBAS ASSET MANAGEMENT Holding S.A. now owns 1,305,352 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $137,800,000 after buying an additional 82,937 shares during the last quarter. Warther Private Wealth LLC raised its position in shares of Fortinet by 39.7% in the 2nd quarter. Warther Private Wealth LLC now owns 182,160 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $19,258,000 after acquiring an additional 51,750 shares in the last quarter. Cooper Financial Group acquired a new position in shares of Fortinet in the 2nd quarter valued at about $2,653,000. Mainstay Capital Management LLC ADV boosted its position in shares of Fortinet by 105.8% during the 2nd quarter. Mainstay Capital Management LLC ADV now owns 16,816 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $1,778,000 after purchasing an additional 8,643 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Motley Fool Asset Management LLC grew its stake in Fortinet by 15.0% during the second quarter. Motley Fool Asset Management LLC now owns 50,464 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $5,335,000 after purchasing an additional 6,566 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 83.71% of the company’s stock.

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.