Short Interest in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) Drops By 19.5%

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) was the recipient of a large decrease in short interest in June. As of June 15th, there was short interest totalling 2,400,000 shares, a decrease of 19.5% from the May 31st total of 2,980,000 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 520,500 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 4.6 days. Currently, 4.1% of the company’s shares are short sold.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other F5 news, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 1,450 shares of F5 stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, April 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $188.85, for a total value of $273,832.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 121,801 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $23,002,118.85. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. In related news, CFO Francis J. Pelzer sold 500 shares of F5 stock in a transaction on Monday, April 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $178.81, for a total value of $89,405.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 31,290 shares in the company, valued at $5,594,964.90. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 1,450 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, April 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $188.85, for a total value of $273,832.50. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 121,801 shares in the company, valued at approximately $23,002,118.85. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 11,766 shares of company stock valued at $2,016,700. Corporate insiders own 0.58% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of FFIV. Lyrical Asset Management LP grew its position in F5 by 38.3% during the fourth quarter. Lyrical Asset Management LP now owns 1,145,302 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $204,986,000 after buying an additional 317,263 shares during the period. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of F5 during the 4th quarter worth $45,937,000. Ameriprise Financial Inc. raised its stake in shares of F5 by 13.3% during the 3rd quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 1,812,095 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $292,001,000 after buying an additional 212,784 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of F5 by 1.8% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 7,435,868 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $1,330,872,000 after buying an additional 131,341 shares in the last quarter. Finally, BNP Paribas Asset Management Holding S.A. increased its holdings in F5 by 72.6% during the 4th quarter. BNP Paribas Asset Management Holding S.A. now owns 298,612 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $53,446,000 after acquiring an additional 125,635 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $220.00 target price on shares of F5 in a report on Tuesday, April 30th. Evercore ISI cut their target price on F5 from $200.00 to $180.00 and set an “in-line” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, April 30th. Royal Bank of Canada dropped their price target on shares of F5 from $204.00 to $182.00 and set a “sector perform” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, April 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on shares of F5 from $197.00 to $205.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, April 11th. Finally, Piper Sandler restated a “neutral” rating and issued a $167.00 target price (down previously from $187.00) on shares of F5 in a report on Tuesday, April 30th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating, two have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, F5 presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $185.10.

F5 Price Performance

FFIV stock opened at $171.18 on Tuesday. F5 has a 12 month low of $142.16 and a 12 month high of $199.49. The company has a market cap of $10.03 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.50, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.29 and a beta of 1.08. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $170.64 and a 200 day moving average price of $179.42.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last announced its earnings results on Monday, April 29th. The network technology company reported $2.91 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.88 by $0.03. F5 had a net margin of 17.91% and a return on equity of 21.41%. The business had revenue of $681.00 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $685.47 million. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $1.70 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was down 3.1% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts anticipate that F5 will post 9.64 earnings per share for the current year.

About F5

F5, Inc provides multi-cloud application security and delivery solutions in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific region. The company's distributed cloud services enable its customers to deploy, secure, and operate applications in any architecture, from on-premises to the public cloud.