Analysts Expect F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) to Announce $2.24 EPS

Analysts expect that F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV – Get Rating) will announce earnings of $2.24 per share for the current fiscal quarter, Zacks reports. Six analysts have issued estimates for F5’s earnings. The lowest EPS estimate is $2.19 and the highest is $2.28. F5 reported earnings per share of $2.76 during the same quarter last year, which suggests a negative year over year growth rate of 18.8%. The company is expected to issue its next earnings results on Monday, January 1st.

According to Zacks, analysts expect that F5 will report full year earnings of $9.53 per share for the current fiscal year, with EPS estimates ranging from $9.43 to $9.66. For the next fiscal year, analysts forecast that the company will report earnings of $11.30 per share, with EPS estimates ranging from $10.19 to $11.90. Zacks Investment Research’s EPS calculations are a mean average based on a survey of research firms that cover F5.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV – Get Rating) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 26th. The network technology company reported $2.13 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the Thomson Reuters’ consensus estimate of $2.01 by $0.12. F5 had a return on equity of 19.98% and a net margin of 13.19%. The business had revenue of $634.22 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $634.20 million. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $1.70 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 1.7% compared to the same quarter last year.

FFIV has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. William Blair restated a “market perform” rating on shares of F5 in a research note on Tuesday, January 25th. Barclays lowered their target price on F5 from $232.00 to $216.00 in a research report on Thursday, April 28th. Morgan Stanley downgraded F5 from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and lowered their target price for the company from $280.00 to $250.00 in a research report on Tuesday, April 12th. Citigroup lowered their target price on F5 from $215.00 to $210.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 26th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded F5 from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, April 28th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have given a hold rating, twelve have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, F5 currently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $228.15.

In related news, EVP Chad Michael Whalen sold 251 shares of F5 stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $207.25, for a total transaction of $52,019.75. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CFO Francis J. Pelzer sold 500 shares of F5 stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, April 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $198.17, for a total value of $99,085.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 16,389 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,247,808.13. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 12,901 shares of company stock worth $2,592,514. Insiders own 0.31% of the company’s stock.

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Marshall Wace LLP boosted its stake in F5 by 39.5% during the third quarter. Marshall Wace LLP now owns 13,596 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $2,703,000 after buying an additional 3,848 shares during the last quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc lifted its stake in F5 by 2.1% during the 3rd quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc now owns 5,422 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $1,078,000 after acquiring an additional 112 shares in the last quarter. DNB Asset Management AS increased its holdings in F5 by 6.6% during the 4th quarter. DNB Asset Management AS now owns 10,819 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $2,648,000 after purchasing an additional 672 shares during the period. Tealwood Asset Management Inc. purchased a new stake in F5 during the 3rd quarter worth about $1,399,000. Finally, AustralianSuper Pty Ltd purchased a new position in shares of F5 in the 3rd quarter valued at about $9,023,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 91.13% of the company’s stock.

FFIV stock opened at $172.24 on Tuesday. F5 has a 1-year low of $166.02 and a 1-year high of $249.00. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14, a current ratio of 0.98 and a quick ratio of 1.16. The company has a market capitalization of $10.46 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.27, a PEG ratio of 4.36 and a beta of 1.11. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $200.78 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $214.82.

About F5 (Get Rating)

F5, Inc provides multi-cloud application security and delivery solutions for the security, performance, and availability of network applications, servers, and storage systems. The company's multi-cloud application security and delivery solutions enable its customers to develop, deploy, operate, secure, and govern applications in any architecture, from on-premises to the public cloud.

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