Insider Selling: F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) Director Sells 728 Shares of Stock

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) Director Marianne Budnik sold 728 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $304.45, for a total value of $221,639.60. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 1,770 shares in the company, valued at $538,876.50. This trade represents a 29.14 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website.

F5 Trading Down 1.4 %

Shares of FFIV traded down $4.22 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $297.26. 681,633 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 657,747. F5, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $159.01 and a fifty-two week high of $308.00. The firm has a market capitalization of $17.24 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.55, a P/E/G ratio of 4.06 and a beta of 1.06. The business’s 50 day moving average is $259.25 and its two-hundred day moving average is $227.07.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last announced its earnings results on Monday, October 28th. The network technology company reported $3.67 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.45 by $0.22. F5 had a net margin of 20.58% and a return on equity of 21.34%. The business had revenue of $747.00 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $730.43 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $2.76 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts forecast that F5, Inc. will post 11.01 earnings per share for the current year.

F5 announced that its Board of Directors has authorized 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 buy up to 7.9% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are usually a sign that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts recently commented on FFIV shares. StockNews.com raised F5 from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Piper Sandler increased their target price on F5 from $246.00 to $304.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday. Morgan Stanley increased their target price on F5 from $262.00 to $310.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Wednesday. Royal Bank of Canada upped their price objective on shares of F5 from $260.00 to $310.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price objective on shares of F5 from $225.00 to $250.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating, one has given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $295.00.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On F5

Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Chase Investment Counsel Corp acquired a new stake in shares of F5 during the third quarter worth about $4,726,000. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised its holdings in F5 by 24.7% during the third quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 409,130 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $90,090,000 after purchasing an additional 81,005 shares in the last quarter. New York State Common Retirement Fund raised its holdings in F5 by 14.3% during the third quarter. New York State Common Retirement Fund now owns 70,536 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $15,532,000 after purchasing an additional 8,800 shares in the last quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC raised its holdings in F5 by 36.3% during the fourth quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 2,144 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $539,000 after purchasing an additional 571 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Addenda Capital Inc. raised its holdings in F5 by 43.5% during the fourth quarter. Addenda Capital Inc. now owns 50,314 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $12,652,000 after purchasing an additional 15,240 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.