Marshall Wace LLP Buys 491,590 Shares of Fortinet, Inc. $FTNT

Marshall Wace LLP boosted its stake in shares of Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) by 5,845.3% in the second quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 500,000 shares of the software maker’s stock after buying an additional 491,590 shares during the quarter. Marshall Wace LLP owned approximately 0.07% of Fortinet worth $52,860,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in FTNT. Brighton Jones LLC boosted its holdings in shares of 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 purchasing an additional 221 shares during the period. Bison Wealth LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Fortinet in the 4th quarter worth $585,000. Wealthspire Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Fortinet by 2.5% in the 1st quarter. Wealthspire Advisors LLC now owns 4,838 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $466,000 after buying an additional 119 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its position in shares of Fortinet by 4.5% during the 1st quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,151,597 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $399,633,000 after buying an additional 176,972 shares in the last quarter. Finally, National Bank of Canada FI increased its stake in shares of Fortinet by 34.9% during the first quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 625,215 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $60,181,000 after buying an additional 161,719 shares during the period. 83.71% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Fortinet Stock Up 2.0%

Shares of FTNT stock opened at $86.92 on Friday. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $83.50 and its 200 day moving average price is $90.08. Fortinet, Inc. has a 1-year low of $70.12 and a 1-year high of $114.82. The company has a market cap of $64.64 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.77, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.27 and a beta of 1.10. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.68, a current ratio of 1.03 and a quick ratio of 0.94.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, November 5th. The software maker reported $0.74 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.63 by $0.11. Fortinet had a return on equity of 118.27% and a net margin of 28.58%.The business had revenue of $1.72 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.70 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $0.63 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 14.4% on a year-over-year basis. Fortinet has set its FY 2025 guidance at 2.660-2.700 EPS and its Q4 2025 guidance at 0.730-0.750 EPS. On average, research analysts expect that Fortinet, Inc. will post 2.09 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Fortinet news, CEO Ken Xie sold 158,485 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $86.51, for a total value of $13,710,537.35. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 51,391,879 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,445,911,452.29. This trade represents a 0.31% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, VP Michael Xie sold 3,546 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $86.53, for a total transaction of $306,835.38. Following the sale, the vice president directly owned 10,492,018 shares in the company, valued at $907,874,317.54. This trade represents a 0.03% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Company insiders own 17.20% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

FTNT has been the subject of a number of research reports. Erste Group Bank lowered shares of Fortinet from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 14th. Cantor Fitzgerald reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $87.00 price target on shares of Fortinet in a research report on Monday, November 24th. Robert W. Baird cut their price objective on shares of Fortinet from $90.00 to $86.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, November 6th. Piper Sandler lowered their target price on Fortinet from $90.00 to $85.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, November 6th. Finally, Daiwa Capital Markets downgraded Fortinet from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $86.00 price target on the stock. in a report on Wednesday, November 12th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, five have given a Buy rating, twenty-eight have assigned a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $90.37.

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.