F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Updates FY 2024 Earnings Guidance

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) issued an update on its FY 2024 earnings guidance on Monday morning. The company provided earnings per share (EPS) guidance of 13.100-13.100 for the period, compared to the consensus estimate of 12.640. The company issued revenue guidance of $2.8 billion-$2.8 billion, compared to the consensus revenue estimate of $2.8 billion. F5 also updated its Q4 guidance to $3.38-3.50 EPS.

F5 Price Performance

Shares of F5 stock traded up $0.25 during trading hours on Monday, reaching $177.59. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 1,036,851 shares, compared to its average volume of 484,158. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $171.19 and a 200-day moving average price of $179.08. F5 has a one year low of $145.45 and a one year high of $199.49. The stock has a market cap of $10.41 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.24, a P/E/G ratio of 2.36 and a beta of 1.08.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last posted its earnings results on Monday, July 29th. The network technology company reported $3.36 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.96 by $0.40. F5 had a net margin of 17.91% and a return on equity of 21.41%. The firm had revenue of $695.50 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $686.06 million. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $2.46 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was down 1.0% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that F5 will post 9.64 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

FFIV has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. Royal Bank of Canada dropped their price target on shares of F5 from $204.00 to $182.00 and set a sector perform rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, April 30th. Piper Sandler reaffirmed a neutral rating and set a $167.00 price target (down from $187.00) on shares of F5 in a research note on Tuesday, April 30th. Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a buy rating and set a $220.00 price target on shares of F5 in a research note on Tuesday, April 30th. Barclays dropped their price target on shares of F5 from $206.00 to $189.00 and set an equal weight rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, April 30th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on shares of F5 from $197.00 to $205.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research report on Thursday, April 11th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have assigned a hold rating, two have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $187.33.

Insider Transactions at F5

In related news, CFO Francis J. Pelzer sold 500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, June 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $170.00, for a total transaction of $85,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 31,608 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,373,360. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. In other F5 news, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 851 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, May 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $167.53, for a total transaction of $142,568.03. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 15,504 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,597,385.12. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CFO Francis J. Pelzer sold 500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, June 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $170.00, for a total transaction of $85,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 31,608 shares in the company, valued at $5,373,360. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 11,766 shares of company stock valued at $1,990,890. Company insiders own 0.58% 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.