Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. Purchases 61,616 Shares of Fortinet, Inc. $FTNT

Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) by 3.6% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 1,766,816 shares of the software maker’s stock after acquiring an additional 61,616 shares during the period. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. owned approximately 0.23% of Fortinet worth $186,788,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Warther Private Wealth LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 39.7% during 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 during the period. Cooper Financial Group bought a new stake in shares of Fortinet during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $2,653,000. Mainstay Capital Management LLC ADV lifted its holdings 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 worth $1,778,000 after acquiring an additional 8,643 shares during the period. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 40.7% during the 1st quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 73,186 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $7,045,000 after acquiring an additional 21,177 shares during the period. Finally, 1834 Investment Advisors Co. lifted its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 2.9% during the 2nd quarter. 1834 Investment Advisors Co. now owns 12,332 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $1,304,000 after acquiring an additional 353 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 83.71% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Fortinet

In other news, VP Michael Xie sold 476,596 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, August 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $98.48, for a total transaction of $46,935,174.08. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president owned 9,730,560 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $958,265,548.80. This trade represents a 4.67% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ken Xie sold 158,486 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, August 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $98.48, for a total transaction of $15,607,701.28. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 51,391,879 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,061,072,243.92. The trade was a 0.31% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 17.20% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities analysts recently commented on the stock. DZ Bank raised shares of Fortinet from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $85.00 price objective for the company in a research note on Friday, August 8th. BMO Capital Markets cut their target price on shares of Fortinet from $110.00 to $90.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, August 7th. Erste Group Bank lowered shares of Fortinet from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 14th. Mizuho cut their target price on shares of Fortinet from $87.00 to $75.00 and set an “underperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, August 7th. Finally, Truist Financial cut their target price on shares of Fortinet from $125.00 to $95.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, August 7th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eight have given a Buy rating, twenty-five have issued a Hold rating and two have given a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $97.03.

Fortinet Price Performance

FTNT stock opened at $85.56 on Friday. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $81.97 and a 200-day moving average price of $93.93. The company has a market capitalization of $65.56 billion, a P/E ratio of 34.09, a PEG ratio of 3.20 and a beta of 1.09. Fortinet, Inc. has a 52-week low of $70.12 and a 52-week high of $114.82. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24, a quick ratio of 1.24 and a current ratio of 1.33.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 6th. The software maker reported $0.64 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.59 by $0.05. The firm had revenue of $1.63 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.63 billion. Fortinet had a net margin of 30.60% and a return on equity of 111.46%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 13.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $0.57 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts expect that Fortinet, Inc. will post 2.09 EPS for the current year.

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.