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

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) has been assigned an average rating of “Hold” from the eight brokerages that are currently covering the stock, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company. The average 12 month price objective among analysts that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $251.25.

Several equities analysts recently commented on FFIV shares. Barclays upped their target price on F5 from $214.00 to $246.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. Evercore ISI upped their price objective on shares of F5 from $240.00 to $270.00 and gave the company an “in-line” rating in a research note on Friday. Morgan Stanley raised their target price on shares of F5 from $230.00 to $262.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, December 17th. StockNews.com raised shares of F5 from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price target on shares of F5 from $225.00 to $250.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th.

F5 Price Performance

F5 stock opened at $263.95 on Friday. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $253.16 and its two-hundred day moving average is $220.94. The stock has a market capitalization of $15.47 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.61, a P/E/G ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 1.06. F5 has a 12-month low of $159.01 and a 12-month high of $267.74.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last announced its earnings results on Monday, October 28th. The network technology company reported $3.67 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates 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% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $2.76 earnings per share. As a group, analysts forecast that F5 will post 11.01 EPS for the current year.

F5 announced that its board has initiated a stock repurchase program on Monday, October 28th that allows the company to buyback $1.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization allows 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 leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Transactions at F5

In other news, CFO Francis J. Pelzer sold 600 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $217.67, for a total value of $130,602.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 29,825 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $6,492,007.75. This represents a 1.97 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, Director Alan Higginson sold 825 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $239.77, for a total value of $197,810.25. Following the sale, the director now owns 9,882 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,369,407.14. The trade was a 7.71 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Company insiders own 0.58% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of F5

Large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Empirical Finance LLC boosted its stake in shares of F5 by 2.3% in the third quarter. Empirical Finance LLC now owns 2,049 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $451,000 after purchasing an additional 46 shares during the period. Captrust Financial Advisors boosted its position in F5 by 2.0% in the 3rd quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 2,598 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $572,000 after buying an additional 50 shares during the last quarter. First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. grew its stake in shares of F5 by 2.9% during the third quarter. First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. now owns 2,030 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $447,000 after acquiring an additional 58 shares in the last quarter. Profund Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of F5 by 6.3% during the second quarter. Profund Advisors LLC now owns 1,185 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $204,000 after acquiring an additional 70 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Commerce Bank lifted its stake in shares of F5 by 3.2% in the third quarter. Commerce Bank now owns 2,485 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $547,000 after acquiring an additional 78 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

F5 Company Profile

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.