Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) Issues Q3 2024 Earnings Guidance

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) updated its third quarter 2024 earnings guidance on Tuesday. The company provided earnings per share guidance of 0.560-0.580 for the period, compared to the consensus earnings per share estimate of 0.430. The company issued revenue guidance of $1.4 billion-$1.5 billion, compared to the consensus revenue estimate of $1.5 billion. Fortinet also updated its FY 2024 guidance to 2.130-2.190 EPS.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

FTNT has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. Needham & Company LLC reissued a hold rating on shares of Fortinet in a research note on Wednesday. Wedbush reissued an outperform rating and set a $78.00 price target on shares of Fortinet in a research report on Wednesday. TD Cowen upgraded shares of Fortinet from a hold rating to a buy rating and set a $75.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Thursday, July 18th. Piper Sandler reduced their target price on Fortinet from $75.00 to $70.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a report on Friday, May 3rd. Finally, Evercore ISI decreased their target price on Fortinet from $72.00 to $67.00 and set an in-line rating for the company in a research note on Friday, May 3rd. Twenty-four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $71.31.

Fortinet Trading Down 1.8 %

Shares of NASDAQ:FTNT traded down $1.25 during trading on Thursday, hitting $68.68. 10,817,680 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 5,918,767. The stock has a market cap of $52.47 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 44.89, a P/E/G ratio of 2.79 and a beta of 0.98. Fortinet has a fifty-two week low of $44.12 and a fifty-two week high of $73.91. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $59.38 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $63.70.

Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, August 6th. The software maker reported $0.57 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate 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 analyst estimates of $1.40 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $0.31 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 10.9% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts predict that Fortinet will post 1.47 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, VP Michael Xie sold 24,712 shares of Fortinet stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $56.11, for a total transaction of $1,386,590.32. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now directly owns 10,847,018 shares in the company, valued at approximately $608,626,179.98. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. In other news, VP Michael Xie sold 24,712 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $56.11, for a total transaction of $1,386,590.32. Following the completion of the sale, the vice president now owns 10,847,018 shares in the company, valued at approximately $608,626,179.98. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CEO Ken Xie sold 24,267 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, July 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $60.01, for a total transaction of $1,456,262.67. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 48,777,294 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,927,125,412.94. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 91,915 shares of company stock worth $5,401,638. Company insiders own 18.00% of the company’s stock.

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.