F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Price Target Cut to $296.00 by Analysts at Morgan Stanley

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) had its price target decreased by Morgan Stanley from $336.00 to $296.00 in a report released on Wednesday,Benzinga reports. Morgan Stanley currently has an equal weight rating on the network technology company’s stock.

A number of other research analysts also recently issued reports on the company. Bank of America dropped their price objective on F5 from $260.00 to $250.00 and set an “underperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, October 28th. Evercore ISI reissued a “cautious” rating on shares of F5 in a research note on Tuesday, October 28th. Wall Street Zen cut F5 from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, November 28th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price objective on shares of F5 from $320.00 to $295.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, October 28th. Finally, Weiss Ratings reissued a “buy (b-)” rating on shares of F5 in a research note on Monday. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, seven have issued a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, F5 has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $291.11.

F5 Stock Performance

NASDAQ:FFIV opened at $256.07 on Wednesday. F5 has a fifty-two week low of $223.76 and a fifty-two week high of $346.00. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $262.76 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $292.94. The company has a market capitalization of $14.88 billion, a PE ratio of 21.68, a P/E/G ratio of 8.23 and a beta of 0.99.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Monday, October 27th. The network technology company reported $4.39 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.96 by $0.43. F5 had a net margin of 22.42% and a return on equity of 21.76%. The company had revenue of $810.09 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $794.06 million. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $3.67 EPS. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 8.5% on a year-over-year basis. F5 has set its FY 2026 guidance at 14.500-15.500 EPS and its Q1 2026 guidance at 3.350-3.850 EPS. Research analysts predict that F5 will post 11.2 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at F5

In other news, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 1,300 shares of F5 stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $236.99, for a total transaction of $308,087.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 150,323 shares in the company, valued at $35,625,047.77. This trade represents a 0.86% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, insider Lyra Amber Schramm sold 1,062 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $246.97, for a total transaction of $262,282.14. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 29,575 shares of company stock worth $7,407,076. Company insiders own 0.52% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On F5

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in FFIV. Whipplewood Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of F5 by 275.0% during the second quarter. Whipplewood Advisors LLC now owns 90 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $26,000 after acquiring an additional 66 shares during the last quarter. Groupe la Francaise bought a new position in F5 in the 1st quarter valued at $34,000. Flaharty Asset Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of F5 during the 1st quarter valued at $35,000. Abich Financial Wealth Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of F5 during the 3rd quarter valued at $37,000. Finally, Geneos Wealth Management Inc. raised its stake in shares of F5 by 288.1% during the 1st quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 163 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $43,000 after purchasing an additional 121 shares during the period. 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.