F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Receives “Buy” Rating from Needham & Company LLC

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV)‘s stock had its “buy” rating reaffirmed by equities research analysts at Needham & Company LLC in a research note issued to investors on Tuesday, MarketBeat reports. They presently have a $320.00 price target on the network technology company’s stock. Needham & Company LLC’s price target would indicate a potential upside of 20.87% from the company’s current price.

Several other brokerages have also recently issued reports on FFIV. Piper Sandler dropped their price objective on F5 from $304.00 to $262.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, April 8th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their price target on F5 from $296.00 to $285.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, April 17th. Bank of America lifted their price objective on F5 from $180.00 to $260.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Morgan Stanley dropped their target price on shares of F5 from $310.00 to $269.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, April 8th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group upped their price target on shares of F5 from $257.00 to $295.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 29th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, F5 has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $282.56.

F5 Trading Up 0.8 %

Shares of FFIV opened at $264.74 on Tuesday. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $266.93 and its 200-day simple moving average is $261.33. The company has a market cap of $15.26 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.32, a P/E/G ratio of 3.85 and a beta of 1.14. F5 has a twelve month low of $163.12 and a twelve month high of $313.00.

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

Insider Activity

In other news, insider Lyra Amber Schramm sold 253 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Saturday, February 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $297.26, for a total transaction of $75,206.78. Following the sale, the insider now owns 200 shares in the company, valued at approximately $59,452. The trade was a 55.85 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, EVP Chad Michael Whalen sold 4,093 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $290.33, for a total transaction of $1,188,320.69. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 27,264 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,915,557.12. The trade was a 13.05 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 17,504 shares of company stock worth $5,088,492. Insiders own 0.52% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On F5

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Golden State Wealth Management LLC grew its stake in F5 by 275.0% during the 1st quarter. Golden State Wealth Management LLC now owns 105 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $28,000 after purchasing an additional 77 shares during the last quarter. Park Square Financial Group LLC purchased a new position in shares of F5 during the 4th quarter valued at about $31,000. Crowley Wealth Management Inc. purchased a new position in F5 during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $35,000. Hurley Capital LLC acquired a new position in shares of F5 in the 4th quarter valued at $43,000. Finally, Friedenthal Financial purchased a new stake in shares of F5 during the 4th quarter worth about $50,000. 90.66% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.