F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Hits New 1-Year High – Should You Buy?

Shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) reached a new 52-week high during trading on Wednesday . The company traded as high as $435.00 and last traded at $428.6250, with a volume of 6809 shares. The stock had previously closed at $431.26.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Bank of America increased their price objective on shares of F5 from $250.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, May 26th. Zacks Research upgraded F5 from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, June 26th. Barclays upped their target price on F5 from $292.00 to $386.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, May 29th. Evercore upgraded F5 from an “in-line” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $475.00 price target on the stock in a report on Monday, May 18th. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of F5 in a research note on Thursday. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, five have issued a Buy rating, four have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $382.67.

F5 Trading Down 4.3%

The company’s 50 day moving average is $395.06 and its 200 day moving average is $323.84. The company has a market cap of $22.76 billion, a PE ratio of 33.09, a P/E/G ratio of 4.94 and a beta of 1.03.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.90 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.47 by $0.43. The company had revenue of $811.70 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $783.82 million. F5 had a net margin of 21.96% and a return on equity of 21.50%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 11.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $3.42 EPS. F5 has set its Q3 2026 guidance at 3.910-4.030 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 16.250-16.550 EPS. Analysts expect that F5, Inc. will post 12.78 EPS for the current year.

Insider Transactions at F5

In related news, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 1,328 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, May 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $330.58, for a total value of $439,010.24. Following the transaction, the executive vice president owned 8,060 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,664,474.80. This represents a 14.15% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CFO Edward Cooper Werner sold 2,500 shares of F5 stock in a transaction on Tuesday, June 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $400.00, for a total value of $1,000,000.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer directly owned 406 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $162,400. This trade represents a 86.03% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders have sold 22,579 shares of company stock valued at $7,836,860 in the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 0.48% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of F5

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Handelsbanken Fonder AB grew its holdings in F5 by 2.6% during the 2nd quarter. Handelsbanken Fonder AB now owns 17,600 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $7,321,000 after acquiring an additional 440 shares in the last quarter. Wealthcare Advisory Partners LLC bought a new stake in shares of F5 in the 2nd quarter valued at about $213,000. Agate Pass Investment Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of F5 in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $250,000. Elevation Wealth Partners LLC lifted its position in shares of F5 by 373.1% in the 2nd quarter. Elevation Wealth Partners LLC now owns 123 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $51,000 after purchasing an additional 97 shares during the period. Finally, Czech National Bank lifted its position in shares of F5 by 4.3% in the 2nd quarter. Czech National Bank now owns 16,059 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $6,680,000 after purchasing an additional 666 shares during the period. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.