F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) Receives Consensus Rating of “Hold” from Brokerages

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) has been given an average recommendation of “Hold” by the thirteen ratings firms that are currently covering the company, Marketbeat Ratings reports. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have issued a hold rating and five have issued a buy rating on the company. The average 1 year price target among analysts that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $309.8889.

A number of analysts have recently commented on the stock. Zacks Research upgraded shares of F5 from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, January 9th. Morgan Stanley dropped their price objective on shares of F5 from $336.00 to $296.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, December 17th. Needham & Company LLC restated a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a report on Wednesday. Bank of America lowered their target price on shares of F5 from $260.00 to $250.00 and set an “underperform” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, October 28th. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada boosted their price target on F5 from $325.00 to $345.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, Director Alan Higginson sold 1,309 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, December 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $237.11, for a total transaction of $310,376.99. Following the sale, the director directly owned 8,610 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,041,517.10. This represents a 13.20% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 3,343 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, January 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $261.87, for a total transaction of $875,431.41. Following the sale, the executive vice president owned 8,060 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,110,672.20. This represents a 29.32% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Over the last three months, insiders sold 37,158 shares of company stock worth $9,319,717. Insiders own 0.52% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On F5

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in FFIV. Millennium Management LLC raised its holdings in F5 by 166.5% in the 1st quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 62,906 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $16,750,000 after acquiring an additional 39,305 shares during the last quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC increased its holdings in shares of F5 by 1,281.4% in the 1st quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC now owns 967 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $257,000 after purchasing an additional 897 shares in the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. raised its stake in shares of F5 by 38.4% in the first quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 298,297 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $79,428,000 after purchasing an additional 82,835 shares during the last quarter. Focus Partners Wealth purchased a new position in shares of F5 in the first quarter worth $257,000. Finally, Geneos Wealth Management Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of F5 by 288.1% during the first quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 163 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $43,000 after purchasing an additional 121 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

F5 Stock Performance

FFIV stock opened at $292.30 on Thursday. F5 has a fifty-two week low of $223.76 and a fifty-two week high of $346.00. The company has a market capitalization of $16.61 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.75, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 8.48 and a beta of 0.98. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $257.61 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $286.92.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, January 27th. The network technology company reported $4.45 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.63 by $0.82. The company had revenue of $822.47 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $755.97 million. F5 had a return on equity of 22.20% and a net margin of 22.45%.The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $3.84 EPS. F5 has set its Q2 2026 guidance at 3.340-3.460 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 15.650-16.050 EPS. Sell-side analysts forecast that F5 will post 11.2 earnings per share for the current year.

Key Stories Impacting F5

Here are the key news stories impacting F5 this week:

• Positive Sentiment: F5 beat Q1 expectations and raised guidance — reported $4.45 EPS vs. ~$3.63 consensus and $822.5M revenue vs. ~$756M; company raised FY26 EPS guidance to 15.65–16.05 and Q2 EPS to 3.34–3.46, driving the rally. Press Release
• Positive Sentiment: RBC Capital raised its price target to $345 and maintained an outperform rating — implies meaningful upside (~18% from recent levels) and supports further upside momentum. RBC PT Raise
• Positive Sentiment: Zacks upgraded FFIV to a #1 (Strong Buy), adding sell-side optimism to the post-earnings momentum. Zacks Upgrade
• Neutral Sentiment: Barclays raised its price target modestly to $283 but kept an equal-weight rating — a mild offset to bullish activity. Barclays Note
• Neutral Sentiment: An F5 EVP sold 3,343 shares at ~$261.87 (SEC Form 4 filed). Insider sales can be neutral/benign but are monitored by investors. SEC Form 4
• Neutral Sentiment: Post-earnings commentary (e.g., Seeking Alpha) points to strong systems/product demand and AI tailwinds but also flags margin pressure from memory costs and competitive/operational risks — suggests a wait-on-valuation posture for some investors. Seeking Alpha Analysis
• Negative Sentiment: Multiple law firms have issued investor alerts and are soliciting plaintiffs in securities-class actions tied to a prior material cybersecurity incident and an earlier stock decline; deadlines to seek lead-plaintiff status are approaching — this raises legal and reputational risk that could weigh on the stock. Hagens Berman Alert Rosen Notice

About F5

F5 Inc (NASDAQ:FFIV) specializes in application services and delivery networking, helping organizations ensure the availability, performance and security of their applications. The company’s core offerings include advanced load balancing, traffic management and application security solutions designed to optimize user experiences and protect against threats such as distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and web application exploits.

At the heart of F5’s product portfolio is the BIG-IP platform, which provides a suite of software modules for local and global traffic management, secure web application firewalling and DNS service delivery.