F5’s (FFIV) Outperform Rating Reiterated at William Blair

William Blair restated their outperform rating on shares of F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) in a research note issued to investors on Tuesday morning,RTT News reports.

Other research analysts have also issued reports about the company. Evercore ISI upped their target price on F5 from $240.00 to $270.00 and gave the company an “in-line” rating in a research report on Friday, January 17th. Bank of America increased their price objective on F5 from $180.00 to $260.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Piper Sandler decreased their target price on F5 from $304.00 to $262.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, April 8th. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $320.00 target price on shares of F5 in a research report on Tuesday. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group raised their price target on shares of F5 from $257.00 to $295.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 29th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have issued a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $282.56.

F5 Stock Performance

FFIV opened at $265.77 on Tuesday. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $266.38 and its 200-day moving average price is $261.65. F5 has a one year low of $163.12 and a one year high of $313.00. The stock has a market cap of $15.32 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.42, a P/E/G ratio of 3.85 and a beta of 1.14.

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

Insider Buying and Selling at F5

In other F5 news, insider Lyra Amber Schramm sold 253 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Saturday, February 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $297.26, for a total value of $75,206.78. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 200 shares in the company, valued at approximately $59,452. This represents a 55.85 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 1,300 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, April 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $265.37, for a total transaction of $344,981.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 148,647 shares in the company, valued at approximately $39,446,454.39. The trade was a 0.87 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 17,504 shares of company stock valued at $5,088,492. 0.52% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in F5 by 0.9% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 7,544,256 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $1,897,154,000 after acquiring an additional 64,261 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its position in shares of F5 by 1.9% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,604,362 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $402,536,000 after purchasing an additional 30,367 shares during the period. First Trust Advisors LP increased its stake in shares of F5 by 3.1% during the fourth quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 1,259,848 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $316,814,000 after purchasing an additional 37,354 shares in the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp raised its position in shares of F5 by 38.0% during the 4th quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 913,021 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $229,597,000 after purchasing an additional 251,534 shares during the last quarter. Finally, GAMMA Investing LLC lifted its stake in F5 by 34,698.9% in the 1st quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 746,089 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $198,661,000 after buying an additional 743,945 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.