F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Hits New 12-Month High – What’s Next?

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV)’s stock price hit a new 52-week high on Monday . The company traded as high as $250.46 and last traded at $249.24, with a volume of 111775 shares. The stock had previously closed at $246.98.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts have weighed in on FFIV shares. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their target price on shares of F5 from $212.00 to $241.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Piper Sandler increased their target price on shares of F5 from $186.00 to $246.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Royal Bank of Canada increased their target price on shares of F5 from $205.00 to $240.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Barclays increased their target price on shares of F5 from $214.00 to $246.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Finally, Morgan Stanley increased their target price on shares of F5 from $215.00 to $230.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $233.56.

F5 Trading Down 0.7 %

The stock has a market capitalization of $14.66 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.07, a P/E/G ratio of 3.36 and a beta of 1.05. The company’s 50-day moving average is $228.03 and its two-hundred day moving average is $198.20.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last released its quarterly earnings results on Monday, October 28th. The network technology company reported $3.67 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.45 by $0.22. F5 had a net margin of 20.13% and a return on equity of 20.80%. The company had revenue of $747.00 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $730.43 million. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $2.76 EPS. F5’s revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts expect that F5, Inc. will post 11.01 EPS for the current fiscal year.

F5 announced that its board has approved a share repurchase program on Monday, October 28th that authorizes the company to buyback $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the network technology company to repurchase up to 7.9% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are often a sign that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, Director Alan Higginson sold 825 shares of F5 stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $239.77, for a total value of $197,810.25. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 9,882 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,369,407.14. This trade represents a 7.71 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 1,450 shares of F5 stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $218.26, for a total transaction of $316,477.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 121,122 shares in the company, valued at approximately $26,436,087.72. This trade represents a 1.18 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 4,475 shares of company stock worth $977,039. 0.58% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in FFIV. O Shaughnessy Asset Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of F5 in the first quarter worth approximately $274,000. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD boosted its holdings in shares of F5 by 1.0% during the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 80,292 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $15,224,000 after purchasing an additional 811 shares during the period. Kennedy Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of F5 by 25.3% during the first quarter. Kennedy Capital Management LLC now owns 8,845 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $1,677,000 after purchasing an additional 1,787 shares during the period. Janus Henderson Group PLC boosted its holdings in shares of F5 by 195.1% during the first quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC now owns 21,994 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $4,170,000 after purchasing an additional 14,541 shares during the period. Finally, California State Teachers Retirement System boosted its holdings in shares of F5 by 2.0% during the first quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System now owns 98,769 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $18,726,000 after purchasing an additional 1,908 shares during the period. 90.66% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.