F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Hits New 1-Year High After Analyst Upgrade

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) shares hit a new 52-week high on Wednesday after Royal Bank of Canada raised their price target on the stock from $260.00 to $310.00. Royal Bank of Canada currently has a sector perform rating on the stock. F5 traded as high as $309.47 and last traded at $286.70, with a volume of 40735 shares trading hands. The stock had previously closed at $269.72.

Other equities research analysts have also recently issued reports about the company. The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their price target on F5 from $257.00 to $295.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Needham & Company LLC upped their target price on F5 from $285.00 to $360.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on F5 from $225.00 to $250.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Piper Sandler boosted their price target on F5 from $246.00 to $304.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Finally, Morgan Stanley increased their price objective on shares of F5 from $262.00 to $310.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, one has given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, F5 presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $299.38.

Insider Activity at F5

In other F5 news, Director Alan Higginson sold 825 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $239.77, for a total transaction of $197,810.25. Following the sale, the director now owns 9,882 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,369,407.14. The trade was a 7.71 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. 0.58% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On F5

Several hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. Tokio Marine Asset Management Co. Ltd. increased its position in F5 by 2.8% in the 4th quarter. Tokio Marine Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 1,607 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $404,000 after acquiring an additional 44 shares during the period. Empirical Finance LLC increased its holdings in F5 by 2.3% in the third quarter. Empirical Finance LLC now owns 2,049 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $451,000 after purchasing an additional 46 shares during the period. Captrust Financial Advisors raised its position in F5 by 2.0% during the 3rd quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 2,598 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $572,000 after purchasing an additional 50 shares during the last quarter. First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. lifted its holdings in F5 by 2.9% during the 3rd quarter. First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. now owns 2,030 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $447,000 after buying an additional 58 shares during the period. Finally, Greenleaf Trust lifted its holdings in F5 by 5.7% during the 4th quarter. Greenleaf Trust now owns 1,091 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $274,000 after buying an additional 59 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

F5 Trading Up 0.3 %

The stock has a market cap of $17.49 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.54, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.68 and a beta of 1.06. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $259.25 and a 200 day simple moving average of $227.07.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last announced its earnings results on Monday, October 28th. The network technology company reported $3.67 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.45 by $0.22. The business had revenue of $747.00 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $730.43 million. F5 had a return on equity of 20.80% and a net margin of 20.13%. The firm’s revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $2.76 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts expect that F5, Inc. will post 11.01 earnings per share for the current year.

F5 declared that its Board of Directors has authorized a share repurchase program on Monday, October 28th that permits the company to buyback $1.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization permits the network technology company to buy up to 7.9% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are typically a sign that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

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.