F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Upgraded to Strong-Buy by StockNews.com

StockNews.com upgraded shares of F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) from a buy rating to a strong-buy rating in a research report report published on Tuesday morning.

Other research analysts have also recently issued research reports about the stock. The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their price objective on shares of F5 from $212.00 to $241.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their price target on shares of F5 from $205.00 to $240.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Tuesday. Piper Sandler raised their price objective on shares of F5 from $186.00 to $246.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday. Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on F5 from $215.00 to $230.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price target on F5 from $225.00 to $250.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $233.56.

F5 Trading Up 10.1 %

FFIV opened at $240.33 on Tuesday. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $212.57 and a 200 day moving average of $188.96. F5 has a 12 month low of $148.10 and a 12 month high of $250.46. The firm has a market cap of $14.09 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.78, a P/E/G ratio of 2.54 and a beta of 1.06.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last announced its earnings results on Monday, July 29th. The network technology company reported $3.36 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.97 by $0.39. F5 had a return on equity of 21.03% and a net margin of 19.94%. The firm had revenue of $695.50 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $686.06 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $2.46 EPS. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 1.0% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts forecast that F5 will post 10.17 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

F5 declared that its board has approved a share repurchase plan on Monday, October 28th that allows the company to buyback $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization allows the network technology company to buy up to 7.9% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are often a sign that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Activity

In other news, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 851 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $192.71, for a total transaction of $163,996.21. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 16,000 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,083,360. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. In other F5 news, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 851 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, August 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $192.71, for a total transaction of $163,996.21. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 16,000 shares in the company, valued at $3,083,360. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 1,450 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, August 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $188.35, for a total value of $273,107.50. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 124,022 shares in the company, valued at $23,359,543.70. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 6,551 shares of company stock worth $1,334,698. 0.58% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On F5

A number of large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in shares of F5 by 0.4% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 7,465,022 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $1,415,294,000 after buying an additional 29,154 shares during the last quarter. American Century Companies Inc. increased its position in shares of F5 by 10.5% during the second quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 1,709,296 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $294,392,000 after purchasing an additional 162,820 shares in the last quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of F5 by 6,700.2% during the 2nd quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 848,388 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $146,118,000 after purchasing an additional 835,912 shares during the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC boosted its position in shares of F5 by 48.9% in the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 652,972 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $111,932,000 after purchasing an additional 214,351 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Acadian Asset Management LLC grew its stake in F5 by 14.2% during the 1st quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 625,734 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $118,607,000 after buying an additional 77,611 shares during the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

F5 Company Profile

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.