Critical Analysis: Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) and DoubleVerify (NYSE:DV)

DoubleVerify (NYSE:DV) and Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) are both technology companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their risk, earnings, institutional ownership, dividends, analyst recommendations, valuation and profitability.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for DoubleVerify and Fortinet, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
DoubleVerify	0	14	2	0	2.12
Fortinet	5	19	10	2	2.25

DoubleVerify currently has a consensus price target of $13.52, indicating a potential upside of 0.34%. Fortinet has a consensus price target of $150.91, indicating a potential downside of 12.14%. Given DoubleVerify’s higher probable upside, equities research analysts plainly believe DoubleVerify is more favorable than Fortinet.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

97.3% of DoubleVerify shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 83.7% of Fortinet shares are held by institutional investors. 4.0% of DoubleVerify shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 17.6% of Fortinet shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares DoubleVerify and Fortinet’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
DoubleVerify	7.66%	8.77%	7.34%
Fortinet	28.17%	191.54%	21.35%

Volatility and Risk

DoubleVerify has a beta of 0.99, indicating that its stock price is 1% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Fortinet has a beta of 1.06, indicating that its stock price is 6% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares DoubleVerify and Fortinet”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
DoubleVerify	$748.29 million	2.79	$50.65 million	$0.36	37.43
Fortinet	$6.80 billion	18.53	$1.85 billion	$2.84	60.48

Fortinet has higher revenue and earnings than DoubleVerify. DoubleVerify is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Fortinet, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Fortinet beats DoubleVerify on 13 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About DoubleVerify

DoubleVerify Holdings, Inc. provides a software platform for digital media measurement, and data analytics in the United States and internationally. The company provides solutions to advertisers that enable advertisers to increase the effectiveness and quality and return on their digital advertising investments. It offers DV Authentic Ad, a metric of digital media quality, which evaluates the existence of fraud-free, brand-suitable, viewability, and geography for each digital ad; DV Authentic Attention that provides actionable, and comprehensive data to drive campaign performance; and Custom Contextual solution, which allows advertisers to match their ads to relevant content to maximize user engagement and drive campaign performance. In addition, the company provides DV Publisher suite, a solution for digital publishers to manage revenue and increase inventory yield by improving video delivery, identifying lost or unfilled sales, and aggregate data across all inventory sources; and DV Pinnacle, a service and analytics platform user interface that allows its customers to adjust and deploy controls for their media plan and track campaign performance metrics across channels, formats, and devices. Further, it offers software solutions are integrated in the digital advertising ecosystem, including programmatic platforms, social media channels, and digital publishers. It serves brands, publishers, and other supply-side customers covering various industry verticals, including consumer packaged goods, financial services, telecommunications, technology, automotive, and healthcare. The company was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in New York, New York.

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. The company also provides the Fortinet Unified SASE solutions that include firewall, SD-WAN, Secure web gateway, cloud access services broker, data loss prevention, zero trust network access, and cloud security, including web application firewalls, virtualized firewalls, and cloud-native firewalls. In addition, it offers security operations solutions comprising FortiAI generative AI assistant, FortiSIEM security information and event management, FortiSOAR security orchestration, automation and response, FortiEDR endpoint detection and response, FortiXDR extended detection and response, FortiMDR managed detection and response service, FortiNDR network detection and response, FortiRecon digital risk protection, FortiDeceptor deception technology, FortiGuard SoCaaS, FortiSandbox sandboxing, FortiGuard incident response, and other products. Further, the company offers FortiGuard security services consisting of FortiGuard application security, content security, device security, NOC/SOC security, and web security services; FortiCare technical support services; and training services to customers and channel partners, as well as operates a FortiGuard Lab, a cybersecurity threat intelligence and research organization. It serves enterprise, communication and security service providers, government organizations, and small and medium-sized businesses. The company was incorporated in 2000 and is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California.