F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Price Target Raised to $310.00

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) had its price target upped by Royal Bank of Canada from $260.00 to $310.00 in a report published on Wednesday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has a sector perform rating on the network technology company’s stock.

Several other research firms have also issued reports on FFIV. Needham & Company LLC raised their price objective on F5 from $285.00 to $360.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Piper Sandler raised their price target on F5 from $246.00 to $304.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on shares of F5 from $225.00 to $250.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. Barclays raised their target price on shares of F5 from $246.00 to $296.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Wednesday. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded shares of F5 from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating, one has assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $295.00.

F5 Stock Down 1.4 %

F5 stock opened at $297.26 on Wednesday. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $260.25 and its 200-day moving average price is $227.89. The company has a market cap of $17.24 billion, a PE ratio of 29.55, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.06 and a beta of 1.06. F5 has a twelve month low of $159.01 and a twelve month high of $308.00.

F5 announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a share repurchase plan on Monday, October 28th that permits the company to repurchase $1.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization permits the network technology company to buy up to 7.9% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are usually a sign that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, Director Marianne Budnik sold 728 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $304.45, for a total transaction of $221,639.60. Following the transaction, the director now owns 1,770 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $538,876.50. This represents a 29.14 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director Alan Higginson sold 825 shares of F5 stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $239.77, for a total value of $197,810.25. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 9,882 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,369,407.14. The trade was a 7.71 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.58% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of F5

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of F5 during the 3rd quarter worth $28,000. Kathleen S. Wright Associates Inc. bought a new position in F5 in the third quarter worth about $32,000. Friedenthal Financial bought a new position in F5 in the fourth quarter worth about $50,000. Brown Financial Advisors purchased a new stake in shares of F5 during the second quarter valued at about $66,000. Finally, Venturi Wealth Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of F5 by 79.8% in the 3rd quarter. Venturi Wealth Management LLC now owns 320 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $70,000 after buying an additional 142 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

F5 Company Profile

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.