F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) Short Interest Up 5.4% in December

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) was the target of a significant growth in short interest during the month of December. As of December 31st, there was short interest totalling 1,560,000 shares, a growth of 5.4% from the December 15th total of 1,480,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 564,900 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 2.8 days. Currently, 2.7% of the shares of the stock are short sold.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

FFIV has been the topic of several recent research reports. Barclays upped their price objective on F5 from $214.00 to $246.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. Royal Bank of Canada raised their price target on shares of F5 from $240.00 to $260.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 3rd. The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their price objective 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. raised their target price 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. Finally, Piper Sandler boosted their price target on F5 from $186.00 to $246.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, one has issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $251.25.

Insider Activity

In related news, Director Alan Higginson sold 825 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $239.77, for a total value 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. This represents a 7.71 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Company insiders own 0.58% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On F5

A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of FFIV. Federated Hermes Inc. boosted its stake in F5 by 7.1% in the second quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. now owns 5,635 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $971,000 after acquiring an additional 375 shares during the period. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its position in F5 by 8.9% during the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 598,605 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $103,096,000 after purchasing an additional 48,742 shares during the period. Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV grew its stake in F5 by 59.5% during the 2nd quarter. Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV now owns 4,258 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $733,000 after buying an additional 1,589 shares during the last quarter. XTX Topco Ltd acquired a new stake in F5 in the second quarter worth $547,000. Finally, Inspire Investing LLC lifted its stake in F5 by 7.5% in the second quarter. Inspire Investing LLC now owns 2,027 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $349,000 after buying an additional 142 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

F5 Price Performance

Shares of F5 stock opened at $263.95 on Tuesday. F5 has a 1-year low of $159.01 and a 1-year high of $267.74. The company has a market capitalization of $15.47 billion, a PE ratio of 27.61, a P/E/G ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 1.06. The business has a 50-day moving average of $253.59 and a 200-day moving average of $221.95.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Monday, October 28th. The network technology company reported $3.67 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates 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 net margin of 20.13% and a return on equity of 20.80%. The firm’s revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $2.76 EPS. On average, equities analysts expect that F5 will post 11.01 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

F5 declared that its board has initiated a share buyback program on Monday, October 28th that allows the company to repurchase $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization allows the network technology company to repurchase up to 7.9% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are often an indication that the company’s board believes its stock is 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.