7,216 Shares of Fortinet, Inc. $FTNT Bought by Virtue Capital Management LLC

Virtue Capital Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm purchased 7,216 shares of the software maker’s stock, valued at approximately $1,290,000.

Several other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in FTNT. BlackRock Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Fortinet in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $9,561,650,000. Bank of New York Mellon Corp acquired a new position in shares of Fortinet in the second quarter valued at approximately $1,432,842,000. Legal & General Group Plc acquired a new position in shares of Fortinet in the second quarter valued at approximately $979,062,000. First Trust Advisors LP raised its stake in shares of Fortinet by 45.5% during the first quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 11,506,173 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $940,284,000 after purchasing an additional 3,598,487 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership raised its stake in shares of Fortinet by 87.4% during the first quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 9,651,024 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $788,682,000 after purchasing an additional 4,500,194 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 83.71% of the company’s stock.

Key Fortinet News

Here are the key news stories impacting Fortinet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Fortinet reported third-quarter revenue of approximately $2.08 billion, up 20.5% year over year, and adjusted EPS of $0.91, exceeding consensus estimates. Billings increased 29%, while operating margins reached a record. Fortinet Q3 Earnings and Revenues Beat Estimates
• Positive Sentiment: Management raised full-year 2026 guidance to $8.1 billion-$8.2 billion in revenue and $3.54-$3.58 in EPS. Fourth-quarter EPS guidance of $0.93-$0.95 also exceeds the consensus estimate of $0.86. Fortinet Raises Guidance
• Positive Sentiment: The board authorized an additional $1.2 billion in share repurchases, and quarterly free cash flow was approximately $865 million. Analysts at TD Cowen, Rosenblatt and Truist retained bullish ratings despite lowering their price targets. Fortinet Adds to Buyback Program
• Neutral Sentiment: Fortinet is technically oversold after a sharp multi-week decline, while rising earnings estimates could support a rebound. However, the technical signal does not resolve concerns about the company’s growth mix. Fortinet May See a Trend Reversal
• Negative Sentiment: Service revenue grew only 13%, versus 37% growth in product revenue. Investors are concerned that hardware sales tied to AI infrastructure are not converting into recurring services quickly enough, reducing near-term revenue visibility. The Real Reason Fortinet Dropped
• Negative Sentiment: Management lowered its services outlook, while fourth-quarter revenue guidance implies growth deceleration from the third quarter. Normalizing pricing benefits, higher inventory costs and longer component lead times added to investor concerns.
• Negative Sentiment: Wells Fargo cut its price target to $115 and assigned an underweight rating; Susquehanna lowered its target to $145 and rated the shares neutral. Other firms, including Bank of America, Citi, Barclays and Scotiabank, also reduced targets or ratings. Analysts Cut Fortinet Forecasts
• Negative Sentiment: The broader technology and cybersecurity sell-off is amplifying the reaction, despite a major cryptocurrency hack highlighting demand for digital security. Investors are also questioning whether Fortinet’s premium valuation remains justified as growth slows.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research firms recently weighed in on FTNT. Susquehanna lowered their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $160.00 to $145.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday. Daiwa Securities Group upped their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $115.00 to $165.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 4th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on shares of Fortinet from $118.00 to $140.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a research note on Friday, October 23rd. William Blair reiterated a “market perform” rating on shares of Fortinet in a research note on Tuesday, July 21st. Finally, Wolfe Research set a $175.00 price target on shares of Fortinet in a research note on Thursday, July 30th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, ten have issued a Buy rating, twenty-four have assigned a Hold rating and six have issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $147.94.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, COO John Whittle sold 53,865 shares of the stock in a transaction dated 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 transaction, the chief operating officer directly owned 96,987 shares in the company, valued at $16,045,529.28. This represents a 35.71% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders own 17.60% of the company’s stock.

Fortinet Stock Performance

Shares of FTNT stock opened at $136.08 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.22, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a current ratio of 1.40. The stock has a market cap of $99.84 billion, a PE ratio of 44.18, a P/E/G ratio of 2.63 and a beta of 1.04. Fortinet, Inc. has a 1 year low of $73.55 and a 1 year high of $197.13. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $171.34 and a 200 day moving average price of $128.28.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 28th. The software maker reported $0.91 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.86 by $0.05. Fortinet had a return on equity of 152.72% and a net margin of 28.96%. The business had revenue of $2.08 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.06 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.74 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 20.5% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts forecast that Fortinet, Inc. will post 3.19 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Fortinet 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.