F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) Director Alan Higginson Sells 825 Shares

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) Director Alan Higginson sold 825 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $239.77, for a total value of $197,810.25. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 9,882 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,369,407.14. The trade was a 7.71 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website.

Alan Higginson also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Monday, September 9th, Alan Higginson sold 1,000 shares of F5 stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $201.65, for a total transaction of $201,650.00.

F5 Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ FFIV traded up $2.55 during midday trading on Thursday, reaching $244.57. 198,154 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 533,003. The stock has a market capitalization of $14.34 billion, a PE ratio of 25.63, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.24 and a beta of 1.05. F5, Inc. has a 52-week low of $159.01 and a 52-week high of $250.46. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $225.07 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $195.83.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last issued its 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%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $2.76 EPS. Analysts predict that F5, Inc. will post 11.01 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

F5 declared that its board has initiated a share buyback program 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 repurchase up to 7.9% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are often an indication that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on FFIV. The Goldman Sachs Group upped their price target on F5 from $212.00 to $241.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. StockNews.com raised F5 from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. Morgan Stanley increased their price objective on F5 from $215.00 to $230.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Royal Bank of Canada raised their target price on shares of F5 from $205.00 to $240.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. Finally, Piper Sandler raised their target price on shares of F5 from $186.00 to $246.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $233.56.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Virtu Financial LLC acquired a new position in F5 in the third quarter valued at approximately $1,531,000. Unigestion Holding SA acquired a new position in F5 in the third quarter valued at approximately $622,000. Coldstream Capital Management Inc. acquired a new position in shares of F5 during the third quarter worth approximately $203,000. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its position in shares of F5 by 8.0% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,573,995 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $345,560,000 after buying an additional 117,080 shares during the period. Finally, Barclays PLC boosted its position in shares of F5 by 1.4% during the third quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 144,572 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $31,836,000 after buying an additional 2,008 shares during the period. 90.66% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.