F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Issues Q1 Earnings Guidance

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) issued an update on its first quarter earnings guidance on Monday morning. The company provided EPS guidance of $3.29-$3.41 for the period, compared to the consensus EPS estimate of $3.35. The company issued revenue guidance of $705-$725 million, compared to the consensus revenue estimate of $705.94 million. F5 also updated its FY 2025 guidance to 14.040-14.310 EPS.

F5 Price Performance

Shares of F5 stock traded down $3.44 on Wednesday, hitting $236.89. The company had a trading volume of 219,196 shares, compared to its average volume of 530,201. The company has a market cap of $13.88 billion, a PE ratio of 28.66, a PEG ratio of 2.54 and a beta of 1.06. F5 has a 52 week low of $149.40 and a 52 week high of $250.46. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $212.57 and a 200-day simple moving average of $188.96.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Monday, October 28th. The network technology company reported $3.67 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.45 by $0.22. The firm had revenue of $747.00 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $730.43 million. F5 had a net margin of 19.94% and a return on equity of 21.03%. F5’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $2.76 earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts predict that F5 will post 10.17 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

F5 announced that its Board of Directors has approved a stock repurchase plan on Monday, October 28th that authorizes the company to buyback $1.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the network technology company to repurchase up to 7.9% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are usually an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

FFIV has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Barclays upped their price objective on shares of F5 from $214.00 to $246.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday. Piper Sandler lifted their price target on F5 from $186.00 to $246.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday. Evercore ISI upped their price objective on shares of F5 from $180.00 to $210.00 and gave the company an “in-line” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 30th. StockNews.com raised F5 from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada raised their price target on shares of F5 from $205.00 to $240.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a report on Tuesday. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $233.56.

Insider Activity at F5

In other F5 news, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 1,450 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $218.26, for a total value of $316,477.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 121,122 shares in the company, valued at $26,436,087.72. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. In other news, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 1,450 shares of F5 stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $218.26, for a total transaction of $316,477.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 121,122 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $26,436,087.72. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 851 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction 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 completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 16,000 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,083,360. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 6,551 shares of company stock worth $1,334,698 in the last ninety days. 0.58% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

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.