F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Shares Gap Up Following Strong Earnings

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) gapped up before the market opened on Wednesday following a stronger than expected earnings report. The stock had previously closed at $270.43, but opened at $298.50. F5 shares last traded at $288.4560, with a volume of 1,307,878 shares changing hands.

The network technology company reported $4.45 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.63 by $0.82. The firm had revenue of $822.47 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $755.97 million. F5 had a net margin of 22.45% and a return on equity of 22.20%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 7.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $3.84 EPS. F5 has set its Q2 2026 guidance at 3.340-3.460 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 15.650-16.050 EPS.

F5 News Roundup

Here are the key news stories impacting F5 this week:

• Positive Sentiment: F5 beat Q1 expectations and raised guidance — reported $4.45 EPS vs. ~$3.63 consensus and $822.5M revenue vs. ~$756M; company raised FY26 EPS guidance to 15.65–16.05 and Q2 EPS to 3.34–3.46, driving the rally. Press Release
• Positive Sentiment: RBC Capital raised its price target to $345 and maintained an outperform rating — implies meaningful upside (~18% from recent levels) and supports further upside momentum. RBC PT Raise
• Positive Sentiment: Zacks upgraded FFIV to a #1 (Strong Buy), adding sell-side optimism to the post-earnings momentum. Zacks Upgrade
• Neutral Sentiment: Barclays raised its price target modestly to $283 but kept an equal-weight rating — a mild offset to bullish activity. Barclays Note
• Neutral Sentiment: An F5 EVP sold 3,343 shares at ~$261.87 (SEC Form 4 filed). Insider sales can be neutral/benign but are monitored by investors. SEC Form 4
• Neutral Sentiment: Post-earnings commentary (e.g., Seeking Alpha) points to strong systems/product demand and AI tailwinds but also flags margin pressure from memory costs and competitive/operational risks — suggests a wait-on-valuation posture for some investors. Seeking Alpha Analysis
• Negative Sentiment: Multiple law firms have issued investor alerts and are soliciting plaintiffs in securities-class actions tied to a prior material cybersecurity incident and an earlier stock decline; deadlines to seek lead-plaintiff status are approaching — this raises legal and reputational risk that could weigh on the stock. Hagens Berman Alert Rosen Notice

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages recently weighed in on FFIV. Royal Bank Of Canada lifted their price objective on shares of F5 from $325.00 to $345.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Wednesday. Weiss Ratings cut shares of F5 from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a research report on Tuesday. Zacks Research upgraded F5 from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, January 9th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised F5 from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their target price for the company from $295.00 to $345.00 in a research note on Thursday, January 15th. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have assigned a Hold rating and two have issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, F5 currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $309.89.

Insider Transactions at F5

In related news, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 8,318 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $249.78, for a total transaction of $2,077,670.04. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president directly owned 22,493 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,618,301.54. This trade represents a 27.00% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, Director Alan Higginson sold 1,309 shares of F5 stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, December 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $237.11, for a total value of $310,376.99. Following the completion of the sale, the director directly owned 8,610 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,041,517.10. This represents a 13.20% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold a total of 37,158 shares of company stock worth $9,319,717 in the last 90 days. Company insiders own 0.52% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On F5

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in FFIV. MGO One Seven LLC lifted its position in shares of F5 by 0.8% in the second quarter. MGO One Seven LLC now owns 4,927 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $1,450,000 after purchasing an additional 40 shares in the last quarter. Pacific Sage Partners LLC grew its position in F5 by 0.6% in the fourth quarter. Pacific Sage Partners LLC now owns 7,122 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $1,818,000 after purchasing an additional 40 shares in the last quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management Company Ltd increased its stake in F5 by 0.6% in the 3rd quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management Company Ltd now owns 7,386 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $2,387,000 after buying an additional 42 shares during the last quarter. Coldstream Capital Management Inc. lifted its position in F5 by 4.5% during the 3rd quarter. Coldstream Capital Management Inc. now owns 1,047 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $338,000 after buying an additional 45 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Signaturefd LLC boosted its stake in shares of F5 by 2.6% during the 2nd quarter. Signaturefd LLC now owns 1,834 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $540,000 after buying an additional 46 shares during the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

F5 Stock Performance

The company has a fifty day moving average price of $257.61 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $286.92. The company has a market cap of $16.61 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.75, a PEG ratio of 8.48 and a beta of 0.98.

About F5

F5 Inc (NASDAQ:FFIV) specializes in application services and delivery networking, helping organizations ensure the availability, performance and security of their applications. The company’s core offerings include advanced load balancing, traffic management and application security solutions designed to optimize user experiences and protect against threats such as distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and web application exploits.

At the heart of F5’s product portfolio is the BIG-IP platform, which provides a suite of software modules for local and global traffic management, secure web application firewalling and DNS service delivery.