Morgan Stanley Lowers Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) Price Target to $73.00

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) had its target price decreased by Morgan Stanley from $81.00 to $73.00 in a research note released on Friday morning, Benzinga reports. Morgan Stanley currently has an overweight rating on the software maker’s stock.

A number of other equities analysts also recently weighed in on FTNT. Mizuho lowered their target price on shares of Fortinet from $70.00 to $66.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research note on Friday. Royal Bank of Canada lowered their target price on shares of Fortinet from $71.00 to $68.00 and set a sector perform rating for the company in a research note on Friday. Jefferies Financial Group lowered their target price on shares of Fortinet from $75.00 to $70.00 and set a hold rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, April 18th. Cantor Fitzgerald lowered their target price on shares of Fortinet from $65.00 to $55.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research note on Friday. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded shares of Fortinet from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note on Thursday, April 18th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twenty have assigned a hold rating and twelve have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Fortinet presently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $70.37.

Fortinet Trading Down 0.1 %

Shares of FTNT stock traded down $0.07 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $58.81. 14,471,111 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 5,978,480. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $67.53 and its 200 day simple moving average is $61.95. The stock has a market cap of $44.89 billion, a PE ratio of 38.48, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.60 and a beta of 1.08. Fortinet has a 12 month low of $44.12 and a 12 month high of $81.24. The company has a quick ratio of 1.08, a current ratio of 1.20 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 13.38.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 2nd. The software maker reported $0.43 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.38 by $0.05. The firm had revenue of $1.35 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.34 billion. Fortinet had a net margin of 22.23% and a negative return on equity of 2,235.48%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $0.29 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Fortinet will post 1.4 EPS for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Fortinet news, CEO Ken Xie sold 23,694 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, March 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $71.40, for a total value of $1,691,751.60. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 48,625,005 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,471,825,357. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other Fortinet news, CEO Ken Xie sold 23,694 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, March 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $71.40, for a total value of $1,691,751.60. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 48,625,005 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,471,825,357. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, VP Michael Xie sold 24,710 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $64.48, for a total transaction of $1,593,300.80. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now owns 10,867,018 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $700,705,320.64. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 118,480 shares of company stock worth $8,021,556. 17.54% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Rise Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of Fortinet by 135.6% in the 1st quarter. Rise Advisors LLC now owns 377 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $26,000 after acquiring an additional 217 shares in the last quarter. Vima LLC bought a new position in shares of Fortinet in the 4th quarter worth about $25,000. Atwood & Palmer Inc. bought a new position in shares of Fortinet in the 4th quarter worth about $29,000. Headinvest LLC bought a new stake in Fortinet during the 3rd quarter valued at about $29,000. Finally, Creekmur Asset Management LLC bought a new stake in Fortinet during the 4th quarter valued at about $32,000. 83.71% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Fortinet Company Profile

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.