Royal Bank of Canada Reiterates Sector Perform Rating for F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV)

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV)‘s stock had its “sector perform” rating reaffirmed by research analysts at Royal Bank of Canada in a research note issued on Tuesday,Benzinga reports. They presently have a $290.00 price objective on the network technology company’s stock. Royal Bank of Canada’s price objective points to a potential upside of 9.54% from the company’s current price.

Several other research analysts have also recently weighed in on the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price objective on F5 from $296.00 to $285.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, April 17th. Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $320.00 price target on shares of F5 in a research report on Tuesday. Evercore ISI boosted their price objective on shares of F5 from $240.00 to $270.00 and gave the company an “in-line” rating in a report on Friday, January 17th. William Blair restated an “outperform” rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Tuesday. Finally, Bank of America boosted their price target on F5 from $180.00 to $260.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have issued a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $282.56.

F5 Price Performance

Shares of FFIV opened at $264.74 on Tuesday. The company’s 50-day moving average is $266.93 and its 200-day moving average is $261.33. The firm has a market capitalization of $15.26 billion, a PE ratio of 26.32, a PEG ratio of 3.85 and a beta of 1.14. F5 has a fifty-two week low of $163.12 and a fifty-two week high of $313.00.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last released its quarterly earnings results on Monday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.42 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.11 by $0.31. F5 had a net margin of 20.58% and a return on equity of 20.98%. The firm had revenue of $590.16 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $719.91 million. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $2.91 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 7.3% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts predict that F5 will post 11.2 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity at F5

In related news, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 6,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $303.06, for a total value of $1,969,890.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 151,247 shares in the company, valued at $45,836,915.82. This trade represents a 4.12 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, Director Marianne Budnik sold 1,872 shares of F5 stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, March 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $260.72, for a total transaction of $488,067.84. Following the sale, the director now owns 1,207 shares in the company, valued at approximately $314,689.04. This represents a 60.80 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 17,504 shares of company stock valued at $5,088,492 over the last ninety days. 0.52% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On F5

Several institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. GAMMA Investing LLC raised its holdings in shares of F5 by 34,698.9% in the 1st quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 746,089 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $198,661,000 after acquiring an additional 743,945 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of F5 in the fourth quarter worth approximately $171,127,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership lifted its holdings in shares of F5 by 598.3% in the fourth quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 425,275 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $106,944,000 after purchasing an additional 364,372 shares in the last quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. boosted its position in shares of F5 by 110.4% during the first quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 560,493 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $149,242,000 after buying an additional 294,050 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Northern Trust Corp grew its holdings in F5 by 38.0% during the fourth quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 913,021 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $229,597,000 after buying an additional 251,534 shares in the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.