F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Stock Price Expected to Rise, Piper Sandler Analyst Says

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) had its price objective upped by Piper Sandler from $262.00 to $269.00 in a research note released on Tuesday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has a neutral rating on the network technology company’s stock.

Other analysts also recently issued research reports about the company. Morgan Stanley upped their price target on F5 from $269.00 to $280.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday. The Goldman Sachs Group upped their target price on F5 from $257.00 to $295.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 29th. Barclays reduced their price objective on shares of F5 from $296.00 to $274.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday. Bank of America raised their target price on shares of F5 from $180.00 to $260.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Finally, William Blair restated an “outperform” rating on shares of F5 in a report on Tuesday. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $282.56.

F5 Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ FFIV opened at $265.77 on Tuesday. F5 has a one year low of $163.12 and a one year high of $313.00. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $266.38 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $261.65. The company has a market capitalization of $15.32 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.42, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.85 and a beta of 1.14.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last released its quarterly earnings data on Monday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.42 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.11 by $0.31. The firm had revenue of $590.16 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $719.91 million. F5 had a return on equity of 20.98% and a net margin of 20.58%. The firm’s revenue was up 7.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $2.91 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts anticipate that F5 will post 11.2 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, insider Lyra Amber Schramm sold 253 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Saturday, February 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $297.26, for a total value of $75,206.78. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 200 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $59,452. This represents a 55.85 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 1,300 shares of F5 stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, April 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $265.37, for a total value of $344,981.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 148,647 shares in the company, valued at $39,446,454.39. The trade was a 0.87 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 17,504 shares of company stock valued at $5,088,492 over the last three months. 0.52% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On F5

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Golden State Wealth Management LLC grew its position in F5 by 275.0% in the first quarter. Golden State Wealth Management LLC now owns 105 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $28,000 after acquiring an additional 77 shares during the period. Park Square Financial Group LLC bought a new stake in shares of F5 in the 4th quarter worth about $31,000. Crowley Wealth Management Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of F5 during the 4th quarter worth about $35,000. Hurley Capital LLC bought a new position in F5 during the 4th quarter valued at about $43,000. Finally, Friedenthal Financial acquired a new position in F5 in the fourth quarter valued at about $50,000. 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.