Royal Bank of Canada Issues Positive Forecast for F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Stock Price

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) had its target price boosted by Royal Bank of Canada from $260.00 to $310.00 in a report issued on Wednesday,Benzinga reports. They currently have a sector perform rating on the network technology company’s stock.

FFIV has been the subject of several other reports. Needham & Company LLC raised their target price on shares of F5 from $285.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday. Evercore ISI raised their price objective on shares of F5 from $240.00 to $270.00 and gave the stock an “in-line” rating in a research note on Friday, January 17th. StockNews.com raised shares of F5 from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. Barclays raised their target price on F5 from $246.00 to $296.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday. Finally, Piper Sandler upped their price target on F5 from $246.00 to $304.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, one has assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $299.38.

F5 Stock Up 11.4 %

FFIV opened at $300.46 on Wednesday. The firm has a market cap of $17.61 billion, a PE ratio of 31.43, a P/E/G ratio of 3.68 and a beta of 1.06. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $258.11 and a 200-day simple moving average of $226.55. F5 has a fifty-two week low of $159.01 and a fifty-two week high of $308.00.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last released its quarterly earnings results on Monday, October 28th. The network technology company reported $3.67 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.45 by $0.22. The business had revenue of $747.00 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $730.43 million. F5 had a return on equity of 20.80% and a net margin of 20.13%. F5’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $2.76 EPS. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that F5 will post 11.01 EPS for the current fiscal year.

F5 declared that its Board of Directors has authorized a stock repurchase program on Monday, October 28th that permits the company to repurchase $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization permits the network technology company to repurchase up to 7.9% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are often an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Transactions at F5

In related 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 sale, the director now directly owns 9,882 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,369,407.14. This represents a 7.71 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Company insiders own 0.58% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On F5

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of FFIV. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC bought a new position in F5 in the 3rd quarter worth $28,000. Kathleen S. Wright Associates Inc. bought a new position in shares of F5 in the third quarter worth about $32,000. Friedenthal Financial acquired a new position in shares of F5 during the 4th quarter worth about $50,000. Brown Financial Advisors bought a new stake in F5 during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $66,000. Finally, Venturi Wealth Management LLC grew its holdings in F5 by 79.8% in the 3rd quarter. Venturi Wealth Management LLC now owns 320 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $70,000 after buying an additional 142 shares during the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.