Nisa Investment Advisors LLC Acquires 11,476 Shares of Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT)

Nisa Investment Advisors LLC boosted its stake in Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT - Free Report) by 8.8% during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 141,637 shares of the software maker's stock after buying an additional 11,476 shares during the period. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC's holdings in Fortinet were worth $8,536,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of FTNT. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 1.2% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 68,052,487 shares of the software maker's stock worth $4,648,665,000 after buying an additional 779,271 shares in the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its stake in Fortinet by 664.8% in the 1st quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 35,137,089 shares of the software maker's stock worth $2,400,215,000 after purchasing an additional 30,542,551 shares in the last quarter. Swedbank AB raised its stake in Fortinet by 1.7% in the 2nd quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 8,156,797 shares of the software maker's stock worth $491,610,000 after purchasing an additional 134,366 shares in the last quarter. Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. boosted its holdings in Fortinet by 7.6% in the 1st quarter. Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. now owns 3,996,822 shares of the software maker's stock valued at $273,023,000 after purchasing an additional 283,339 shares during the period. Finally, Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Fortinet during the 4th quarter worth approximately $203,501,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 83.71% of the company's stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have recently weighed in on FTNT. UBS Group upped their target price on Fortinet from $69.00 to $70.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 7th. Piper Sandler upgraded shares of Fortinet from a "hold" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 7th. Wedbush restated an "outperform" rating and issued a $78.00 target price on shares of Fortinet in a research report on Wednesday, August 7th. Mizuho reduced their price target on shares of Fortinet from $70.00 to $66.00 and set a "neutral" rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, May 3rd. Finally, DZ Bank raised shares of Fortinet from a "sell" rating to a "hold" rating and set a $65.00 price objective on the stock in a research note on Thursday, August 8th. Twenty-three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, ten have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Fortinet presently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and a consensus price target of $71.31.

Fortinet Price Performance

Shares of Fortinet stock traded up $0.05 during midday trading on Monday, reaching $74.77. The company had a trading volume of 5,184,679 shares, compared to its average volume of 5,906,495. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $61.21 and a 200 day moving average price of $64.02. Fortinet, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $44.12 and a fifty-two week high of $75.19. The firm has a market cap of $57.12 billion, a PE ratio of 48.87, a P/E/G ratio of 2.79 and a beta of 0.98.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, August 6th. The software maker reported $0.57 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $0.41 by $0.16. Fortinet had a net margin of 22.23% and a negative return on equity of 2,235.48%. The firm had revenue of $1.43 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.40 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $0.31 EPS. The company's revenue for the quarter was up 10.9% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Fortinet, Inc. will post 1.47 EPS for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Fortinet news, CEO Ken Xie sold 23,693 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $73.06, for a total value of $1,731,010.58. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 48,842,522 shares in the company, valued at $3,568,434,657.32. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In related news, CEO Ken Xie sold 23,693 shares of the company's stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $73.06, for a total transaction of $1,731,010.58. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 48,842,522 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $3,568,434,657.32. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director William H. Neukom purchased 586 shares of the business's stock in a transaction on Thursday, June 6th. The stock was purchased at an average price of $59.55 per share, for a total transaction of $34,896.30. Following the acquisition, the director now owns 295,778 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $17,613,579.90. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 115,608 shares of company stock worth $7,132,649. Corporate insiders own 18.00% of the company's stock.

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.