F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Price Target Raised to $310.00 at Morgan Stanley

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) had its price target upped by Morgan Stanley from $262.00 to $310.00 in a report issued on Wednesday,Benzinga reports. Morgan Stanley currently has an equal weight rating on the network technology company’s stock.

A number of other analysts have also commented on FFIV. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their price target on F5 from $212.00 to $241.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on shares of F5 from $225.00 to $250.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. Piper Sandler boosted their target price on shares of F5 from $186.00 to $246.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Needham & Company LLC raised their price target on shares of F5 from $285.00 to $360.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada boosted their price objective on shares of F5 from $240.00 to $260.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 3rd. Seven investment 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 MarketBeat, F5 currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $299.38.

F5 Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:FFIV opened at $300.46 on Wednesday. F5 has a one year low of $159.01 and a one year high of $308.00. The company has a market cap of $17.61 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.43, a PEG ratio of 3.68 and a beta of 1.06. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $258.11 and a 200 day simple moving average of $226.55.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last released its quarterly earnings data on Monday, October 28th. The network technology company reported $3.67 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.45 by $0.22. The company had revenue of $747.00 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate 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 business posted $2.76 EPS. As a group, analysts expect that F5 will post 11.01 EPS for the current year.

F5 declared that its board has authorized a share buyback plan on Monday, October 28th that authorizes the company to repurchase $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the network technology company to reacquire up to 7.9% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are usually a sign that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Activity at F5

In other F5 news, Director Alan Higginson sold 825 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $239.77, for a total transaction of $197,810.25. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 9,882 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,369,407.14. This trade represents a 7.71 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. 0.58% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of F5

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Public Sector Pension Investment Board lifted its position in shares of F5 by 65.6% during the 2nd quarter. Public Sector Pension Investment Board now owns 2,219 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $382,000 after buying an additional 879 shares in the last quarter. MBB Public Markets I LLC bought a new stake in F5 during the second quarter worth $592,000. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company boosted its position in F5 by 1.4% in the second quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 45,848 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $7,896,000 after purchasing an additional 621 shares during the last quarter. Creative Planning grew its stake in F5 by 4.1% in the 2nd quarter. Creative Planning now owns 3,994 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $688,000 after purchasing an additional 156 shares during the period. Finally, Brown Financial Advisors purchased a new stake in shares of F5 during the 2nd quarter valued at $66,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors 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.