F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Stock Price Expected to Rise, Royal Bank of Canada Analyst Says

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) had its target price increased by Royal Bank of Canada from $240.00 to $260.00 in a research note released on Friday morning,Benzinga reports. They currently have a sector perform rating on the network technology company’s stock.

A number of other equities analysts also recently weighed in on the company. Barclays upped their price target on F5 from $214.00 to $246.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised their target price on shares of F5 from $212.00 to $241.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price target on shares of F5 from $225.00 to $250.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. Piper Sandler raised their price objective on F5 from $186.00 to $246.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Finally, Morgan Stanley upped their target price on F5 from $230.00 to $262.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, December 17th. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, F5 presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $239.33.

F5 Stock Up 1.0 %

Shares of FFIV stock opened at $254.36 on Friday. F5 has a 12-month low of $159.01 and a 12-month high of $264.50. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $248.34 and a 200-day moving average of $215.04. The company has a market capitalization of $14.91 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.61, a P/E/G ratio of 3.52 and a beta of 1.06.

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

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

Insider Buying and Selling at F5

In other F5 news, Director Alan Higginson sold 825 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $239.77, for a total value of $197,810.25. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 9,882 shares in the company, valued at $2,369,407.14. The trade was a 7.71 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CFO Francis J. Pelzer sold 600 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $217.67, for a total transaction of $130,602.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 29,825 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $6,492,007.75. This represents a 1.97 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Corporate insiders own 0.58% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On F5

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Hotchkis & Wiley Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in F5 by 3.6% during the 3rd quarter. Hotchkis & Wiley Capital Management LLC now owns 5,489,388 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $1,208,763,000 after purchasing an additional 191,020 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its position in F5 by 0.5% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 3,187,222 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $701,825,000 after buying an additional 16,663 shares during the period. American Century Companies Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of F5 by 10.5% during the second quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 1,709,296 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $294,392,000 after buying an additional 162,820 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its position in shares of F5 by 8.0% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,573,995 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $345,560,000 after acquiring an additional 117,080 shares during the period. Finally, Pacer Advisors Inc. grew its stake in shares of F5 by 6,700.2% in the second quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 848,388 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $146,118,000 after acquiring an additional 835,912 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.