F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Issues Q1 Earnings Guidance

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) issued an update on its first quarter earnings guidance on Monday morning. The company provided EPS guidance of $3.29-$3.41 for the period, compared to the consensus EPS estimate of $3.35. The company issued revenue guidance of $705-$725 million, compared to the consensus revenue estimate of $705.94 million. F5 also updated its FY 2025 guidance to 14.040-14.310 EPS.

F5 Trading Down 2.0 %

Shares of NASDAQ FFIV traded down $4.75 during midday trading on Thursday, reaching $234.20. The company had a trading volume of 316,552 shares, compared to its average volume of 533,414. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $213.36 and its 200 day simple moving average is $189.31. The stock has a market cap of $13.73 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.21, a P/E/G ratio of 2.54 and a beta of 1.06. F5 has a 1 year low of $149.40 and a 1 year high of $250.46.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Monday, October 28th. The network technology company reported $3.67 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.45 by $0.22. The business had revenue of $747.00 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $730.43 million. F5 had a net margin of 19.94% and a return on equity of 21.03%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $2.76 earnings per share. Analysts predict that F5 will post 10.17 earnings per share for the current year.

F5 declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock buyback program 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 shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are usually an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms recently commented on FFIV. Morgan Stanley raised 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. Needham & Company LLC raised their price target on shares of F5 from $220.00 to $235.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 30th. Piper Sandler raised their price target on shares of F5 from $186.00 to $246.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday. The Goldman Sachs Group raised their price target on shares of F5 from $212.00 to $241.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday. Finally, Barclays raised their price target on shares of F5 from $214.00 to $246.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $233.56.

Insider Activity

In other news, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 851 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $192.71, for a total value of $163,996.21. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 16,000 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,083,360. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. In other news, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 851 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $192.71, for a total value of $163,996.21. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 16,000 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,083,360. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, Director Alan Higginson sold 1,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, September 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $201.65, for a total transaction of $201,650.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 10,707 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,159,066.55. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 6,551 shares of company stock worth $1,334,698 over the last 90 days. 0.58% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

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.