F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Price Target Raised to $246.00

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) had its price objective lifted by Piper Sandler from $186.00 to $246.00 in a research report issued on Tuesday, Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has a “neutral” rating on the network technology company’s stock. Piper Sandler’s price objective would suggest a potential upside of 12.66% from the stock’s current price.

Several other research firms have also recently issued reports on FFIV. Evercore ISI raised their target price on shares of F5 from $180.00 to $210.00 and gave the stock an “in-line” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 30th. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their price target on shares of F5 from $182.00 to $205.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 30th. StockNews.com cut shares of F5 from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 10th. Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on shares of F5 from $215.00 to $230.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday. Finally, Barclays lifted their price objective on shares of F5 from $189.00 to $214.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 30th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $219.00.

F5 Stock Performance

FFIV opened at $218.36 on Tuesday. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $211.73 and its 200 day simple moving average is $188.60. F5 has a 1 year low of $148.10 and a 1 year high of $224.47. The stock has a market capitalization of $12.80 billion, a PE ratio of 26.15, a P/E/G ratio of 2.54 and a beta of 1.06.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last released its earnings results on Monday, July 29th. The network technology company reported $3.36 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.97 by $0.39. F5 had a net margin of 19.94% and a return on equity of 21.03%. The business had revenue of $695.50 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $686.06 million. During the same period last year, the company earned $2.46 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 1.0% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that F5 will post 10.17 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

F5 announced that its board has authorized a stock repurchase plan on Monday, October 28th that allows the company to buyback $1.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization allows the network technology company to reacquire up to 7.9% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are typically an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling at F5

In other F5 news, CFO Francis J. Pelzer sold 600 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, October 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $217.67, for a total transaction of $130,602.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 29,825 shares in the company, valued at $6,492,007.75. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. In other F5 news, CFO Francis J. Pelzer sold 600 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, October 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $217.67, for a total transaction of $130,602.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 29,825 shares in the company, valued at $6,492,007.75. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 1,450 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, August 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $188.35, for a total transaction of $273,107.50. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 124,022 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $23,359,543.70. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 6,551 shares of company stock worth $1,334,698 over the last 90 days. Insiders own 0.58% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On F5

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of FFIV. Pacer Advisors Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of F5 by 6,700.2% during the second quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 848,388 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $146,118,000 after acquiring an additional 835,912 shares during the period. Wedge Capital Management L L P NC acquired a new position in shares of F5 during the third quarter valued at $61,386,000. AQR Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of F5 by 48.9% during the second quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 652,972 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $111,932,000 after acquiring an additional 214,351 shares during the period. American Century Companies Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of F5 by 10.5% during the second quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 1,709,296 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $294,392,000 after acquiring an additional 162,820 shares during the period. Finally, Hsbc Holdings PLC boosted its holdings in shares of F5 by 49.8% during the second quarter. Hsbc Holdings PLC now owns 424,249 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $73,046,000 after acquiring an additional 141,040 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.