Phoenix Financial Ltd. Decreases Stake in Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT)

Key Points

• Phoenix Financial Ltd. significantly reduced its stake in Fortinet, Inc. by 87.5% during the first quarter, leaving it with only 2,512 shares.
• Several hedge funds, including Schroder Investment Management Group and FMR LLC, have increased their holdings in Fortinet, demonstrating heightened institutional interest in the company.
• Research firms have recently adjusted their price targets on Fortinet, with the average target now at $106.48, and ratings varying from sell to strong buy among analysts.

Phoenix Financial Ltd. lowered its stake in Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT - Free Report) by 87.5% during the first quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 2,512 shares of the software maker's stock after selling 17,588 shares during the quarter. Phoenix Financial Ltd.'s holdings in Fortinet were worth $242,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of FTNT. Eagle Capital Management LLC lifted its position in Fortinet by 1.6% in the fourth quarter. Eagle Capital Management LLC now owns 26,176 shares of the software maker's stock valued at $2,473,000 after buying an additional 404 shares during the last quarter. Brighton Jones LLC lifted its position in Fortinet by 2.2% in the fourth quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 10,327 shares of the software maker's stock valued at $976,000 after buying an additional 221 shares during the last quarter. LPL Financial LLC lifted its position in Fortinet by 26.5% in the fourth quarter. LPL Financial LLC now owns 281,070 shares of the software maker's stock valued at $26,555,000 after buying an additional 58,924 shares during the last quarter. New Age Alpha Advisors LLC acquired a new position in Fortinet in the fourth quarter valued at about $520,000. Finally, Nomura Asset Management Co. Ltd. lifted its position in Fortinet by 96.3% in the fourth quarter. Nomura Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 555,572 shares of the software maker's stock valued at $52,490,000 after buying an additional 272,582 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 83.71% of the company's stock.

Fortinet Price Performance

FTNT stock traded down $3.36 during trading on Wednesday, hitting $101.42. The stock had a trading volume of 1,844,805 shares, compared to its average volume of 4,726,713. The company's 50 day moving average price is $103.48 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $101.74. Fortinet, Inc. has a 1-year low of $54.57 and a 1-year high of $114.82. The stock has a market cap of $77.63 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 41.68, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.62 and a beta of 1.06. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.25, a quick ratio of 1.29 and a current ratio of 1.36.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT - Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, May 7th. The software maker reported $0.58 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.53 by $0.05. Fortinet had a net margin of 30.60% and a return on equity of 148.79%. The firm had revenue of $1.54 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.54 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.43 EPS. The firm's revenue for the quarter was up 13.8% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Fortinet, Inc. will post 2.09 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity at Fortinet

In other Fortinet news, Director William H. Neukom purchased 335 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, June 6th. The stock was bought at an average price of $104.22 per share, for a total transaction of $34,913.70. Following the acquisition, the director directly owned 301,471 shares of the company's stock, valued at $31,419,307.62. This represents a 0.11% increase in their ownership of the stock. The purchase was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Ken Xie sold 158,488 shares of Fortinet stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $106.10, for a total value of $16,815,576.80. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 51,391,879 shares of the company's stock, valued at $5,452,678,361.90. This trade represents a 0.31% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 18.00% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Rosenblatt Securities reissued a "buy" rating and set a $125.00 price target on shares of Fortinet in a research report on Monday. KeyCorp reduced their price target on shares of Fortinet from $120.00 to $115.00 and set an "overweight" rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, May 8th. BMO Capital Markets reduced their price target on shares of Fortinet from $122.00 to $110.00 and set a "market perform" rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, May 8th. Scotiabank reduced their price target on shares of Fortinet from $135.00 to $115.00 and set a "sector outperform" rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, May 8th. Finally, Robert W. Baird raised their target price on shares of Fortinet from $110.00 to $113.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a report on Tuesday, May 6th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, twenty have given a hold rating, twelve have assigned a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $107.00.

Fortinet 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.