Fortinet Is Surging on Strong Cybersecurity Demand

Fortinet (FTNT:US) shares rose nearly 12% last week after the cybersecurity company offered a better-than-expected revenue forecast for this year. 

The fourth-quarter results were also solid, suggesting that the demand for cybersecurity products remains resilient even as companies are forced to slash their IT budgets amid a challenging macroeconomic environment.

Fortinet saw its revenue increase by 33% to $1.28 billion in the quarter while the adjusted earnings per share were reported at $0.44.

“Our market share gains are being driven by Fortinet’s integrated and single platform approach to cybersecurity combined with FortiASIC technology, which lowers the management costs and the total cost of ownership for organizations,” Fortinet said in a press release. 

The cybersecurity company also offered better-than-expected revenue forecasts for both this quarter and the full year. The Q1 2023 forecasts for billings - invoice amounts billed to customers and a financial metric closely watched by investors - also came in better than expected.

Looking at Capitol Trades’ data, we can see that Congress members Ro Khanna and Diana Harshbarger both bought FTNT stock last year. Congresswoman Harshbarger invested on November 15, when the stock closed at $56.20.

Rep. Khanna recently bought some shares on January 9 worth up to $15K when FTNT closed at around $49.41 mark, which were trading a bit higher than his previous purchase in November at nearly $45.93.

Fortinet share price closed at $59.61 on Friday and is up almost 22.86% year-to-date (YTD).

Despite better-than-expected results and outlook, KeyBanc analysts still downgraded the stock to Sector Weight from Overweight, meaning that they recommend their clients cut their long exposure to this cyber stock.