F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) Receives Consensus Rating of “Hold” from Analysts

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) has received a consensus recommendation of “Hold” from the nine ratings firms that are presently covering the stock, Marketbeat Ratings reports. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating on the company. The average 12-month price target among brokerages that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $237.11.

Several equities analysts have recently commented on the stock. Piper Sandler upped their price objective on shares of F5 from $186.00 to $246.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on F5 from $225.00 to $250.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. StockNews.com raised F5 from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. Morgan Stanley lifted their target price on F5 from $230.00 to $262.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, December 17th. Finally, Barclays increased their price target on shares of F5 from $214.00 to $246.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th.

Insider Buying and Selling at F5

In other news, Director Alan Higginson sold 825 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $239.77, for a total value of $197,810.25. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 9,882 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,369,407.14. This represents a 7.71 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 1,450 shares of F5 stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $218.26, for a total transaction of $316,477.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 121,122 shares in the company, valued at $26,436,087.72. This represents a 1.18 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 2,875 shares of company stock worth $644,889 over the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 0.58% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On F5

Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Pacer Advisors Inc. boosted its position in shares of F5 by 6,700.2% in 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 period. Wedge Capital Management L L P NC purchased a new position in shares of F5 during the third quarter worth approximately $61,386,000. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of F5 by 1,681.1% in the 3rd quarter. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC now owns 285,639 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $62,898,000 after acquiring an additional 269,602 shares during the period. AQR Capital Management LLC raised its position in F5 by 48.9% in the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 652,972 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $111,932,000 after purchasing an additional 214,351 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Hotchkis & Wiley Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in F5 by 3.6% during the 3rd quarter. Hotchkis & Wiley Capital Management LLC now owns 5,489,388 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $1,208,763,000 after purchasing an additional 191,020 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

F5 Stock Up 0.7 %

NASDAQ:FFIV opened at $256.20 on Wednesday. F5 has a 52 week low of $159.01 and a 52 week high of $264.50. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $242.35 and its two-hundred day moving average is $210.21. The company has a market capitalization of $15.02 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.80, a P/E/G ratio of 3.52 and a beta of 1.06.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Monday, October 28th. The network technology company reported $3.67 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.45 by $0.22. The firm had revenue of $747.00 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $730.43 million. F5 had a net margin of 20.13% and a return on equity of 20.80%. F5’s revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $2.76 EPS. Sell-side analysts anticipate that F5 will post 11.01 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

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

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.