Piper Sandler Issues Positive Forecast for F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Stock Price

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) had its price target boosted by Piper Sandler from $186.00 to $246.00 in a research note published on Tuesday, Benzinga reports. They currently have a neutral rating on the network technology company’s stock.

A number of other analysts also recently issued reports on FFIV. Royal Bank of Canada increased their price target on shares of F5 from $182.00 to $205.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 30th. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their price target on shares of F5 from $185.00 to $212.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 24th. Evercore ISI increased their price target on shares of F5 from $180.00 to $210.00 and gave the stock an “in-line” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 30th. StockNews.com downgraded shares of F5 from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 10th. Finally, Barclays increased their price objective on shares of F5 from $189.00 to $214.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 30th. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $233.56.

F5 Stock Down 0.7 %

NASDAQ:FFIV opened at $232.20 on Tuesday. F5 has a 52 week low of $149.40 and a 52 week high of $250.46. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $214.78 and a 200 day moving average of $189.96. The stock has a market capitalization of $13.53 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.29, a PEG ratio of 3.26 and a beta of 1.06.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Monday, October 28th. The network technology company reported $3.67 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.45 by $0.22. The business 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 for the quarter was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $2.76 EPS. As a group, analysts expect that F5 will post 10.91 EPS for the current year.

F5 announced that its board has initiated a stock buyback program on Monday, October 28th that permits the company to buyback $1.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization permits the network technology company to purchase up to 7.9% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are typically an indication that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other F5 news, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 1,450 shares of F5 stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $188.35, for a total transaction of $273,107.50. Following the completion of 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 ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In other F5 news, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 1,450 shares of F5 stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $188.35, for a total transaction of $273,107.50. Following the completion of 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 ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CFO Francis J. Pelzer sold 500 shares of F5 stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $196.73, for a total transaction of $98,365.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 31,125 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $6,123,221.25. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 5,700 shares of company stock worth $1,170,702. Insiders own 0.58% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in FFIV. Bessemer Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of F5 by 424.1% during the 1st quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. now owns 7,604 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $1,442,000 after buying an additional 6,153 shares during the last quarter. LSV Asset Management acquired a new position in shares of F5 during the 1st quarter worth $1,479,000. ProShare Advisors LLC grew its stake in shares of F5 by 60.7% during the 1st quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC now owns 17,083 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $3,239,000 after purchasing an additional 6,451 shares during the period. Bank of Montreal Can boosted its position in shares of F5 by 3.9% in the 2nd quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 308,159 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $53,247,000 after buying an additional 11,525 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Janus Henderson Group PLC boosted its position in shares of F5 by 195.1% in the 1st quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC now owns 21,994 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $4,170,000 after buying an additional 14,541 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

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.