South Dakota Investment Council Decreases Stock Holdings in Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT)

South Dakota Investment Council cut its holdings in Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT - Free Report) by 16.0% in the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 12,469 shares of the software maker's stock after selling 2,382 shares during the period. South Dakota Investment Council's holdings in Fortinet were worth $1,200,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Fortinet by 1.1% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 68,115,470 shares of the software maker's stock worth $6,435,550,000 after purchasing an additional 730,994 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Fortinet by 2.6% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 15,270,913 shares of the software maker's stock worth $1,440,648,000 after purchasing an additional 387,901 shares in the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. increased its stake in shares of Fortinet by 31.3% in the fourth quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 8,388,693 shares of the software maker's stock worth $792,564,000 after purchasing an additional 2,000,888 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new position in shares of Fortinet in the fourth quarter worth about $724,048,000. Finally, Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership increased its stake in shares of Fortinet by 39.3% in the fourth quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 7,622,253 shares of the software maker's stock worth $720,150,000 after purchasing an additional 2,151,811 shares in the last quarter. 83.71% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts have recently commented on FTNT shares. Scotiabank cut their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $135.00 to $115.00 and set a "sector outperform" rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, May 8th. Wolfe Research initiated coverage on shares of Fortinet in a report on Monday, May 12th. They issued a "peer perform" rating for the company. Cantor Fitzgerald lifted their target price on shares of Fortinet from $100.00 to $110.00 and gave the stock a "neutral" rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 16th. Jefferies Financial Group decreased their target price on shares of Fortinet from $115.00 to $105.00 and set a "hold" rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, March 31st. Finally, Barclays set a $110.00 target price on shares of Fortinet and gave the stock an "equal weight" rating in a research note on Monday, July 14th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, twenty have issued a hold rating, twelve have assigned a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company's stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and a consensus target price of $106.48.

Insider Activity

In related news, VP Michael Xie sold 3,546 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, May 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $106.11, for a total value of $376,266.06. Following the transaction, the vice president owned 11,000,068 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,167,217,215.48. This represents a 0.03% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Ken Xie sold 158,488 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, May 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $106.10, for a total transaction of $16,815,576.80. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 51,391,879 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,452,678,361.90. This trade represents a 0.31% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Corporate insiders own 18.00% of the company's stock.

Fortinet Trading Down 2.0%

Shares of NASDAQ:FTNT traded down $2.13 on Tuesday, hitting $104.81. 2,949,746 shares of the company's stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 4,832,272. Fortinet, Inc. has a 12 month low of $54.57 and a 12 month high of $114.82. The stock has a market capitalization of $80.22 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 43.13, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.63 and a beta of 1.06. The business's 50 day simple moving average is $103.30 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $101.35. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.25, a current ratio of 1.36 and a quick ratio of 1.29.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data 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. The firm had revenue of $1.54 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.54 billion. Fortinet had a return on equity of 148.79% and a net margin of 30.60%. The firm's quarterly revenue was up 13.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.43 earnings per share. Analysts anticipate that Fortinet, Inc. will post 2.09 EPS for the current fiscal year.

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.