Rosenblatt Research has upgraded Fortinet to a Buy rating from Neutral and lifted its price target to $100 from $85, citing what it describes as early evidence of an inflection in demand ahead of the company’s fourth-quarter results, which are scheduled for the first week of February.
The upgrade follows recent channel checks with five value-added resellers, according to Rosenblatt, which reported improving momentum. Those reseller conversations indicated that partners are generally meeting or exceeding their targets and that larger deal activity has begun to pick up.
Feedback from these resellers, Rosenblatt said, points to Fortinet benefiting from a broad hardware refresh cycle that is replacing older Cisco firewall systems. That replacement activity is seen as creating a natural entry point for secure access service edge products that are tied to firewall upgrades, offering a pathway for incremental growth beyond the hardware refresh itself.
The research firm also highlighted operational and structural factors that it believes improve the company’s near-term prospects. Rosenblatt cited aggressive fourth-quarter sales execution and a favorable tax environment, including 100% first-year depreciation under the One Big Beautiful Bill, as elements that strengthen the setup for a quarter that could outpace expectations and enable higher forward guidance.
On valuation, Rosenblatt noted that at current share levels Fortinet trades at an implied 9.6x 2026 enterprise value-to-sales multiple. The firm characterized that multiple as attractive for a company it expects to reaccelerate product growth while sustaining high-70s gross margins and a disciplined operating profile.
Taking the combination of improving demand signals and the current valuation into account, Rosenblatt said it expects Fortinet to deliver a beat-and-raise quarter when results are announced in early February.
Additional commentary in the source material described an AI-driven picks product that evaluates FTNT and other companies across a broad set of financial metrics to identify opportunities, noting past winners in its track record. The article indicated this product can be used to compare FTNT to other strategies and to surface alternative opportunities within the same space.
Note: The information above is based on Rosenblatt Research’s published views and the reseller feedback it reported. It reflects the firm’s interpretation of those signals and the valuation it applied; it does not incorporate any other outside analysis.