F5 Target of Unusually Large Options Trading (NASDAQ:FFIV)

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) was the target of unusually large options trading on Wednesday. Stock traders bought 2,087 call options on the stock. This is an increase of approximately 372% compared to the average daily volume of 442 call options.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts recently commented on FFIV shares. Piper Sandler boosted their target price on F5 from $246.00 to $304.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday. Bank of America increased their price objective on F5 from $180.00 to $260.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a research note on Friday. Evercore ISI increased their price target on F5 from $240.00 to $270.00 and gave the company an “in-line” rating in a research report on Friday, January 17th. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their price objective on shares of F5 from $257.00 to $295.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada raised their price target on shares of F5 from $260.00 to $310.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Wednesday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating, one has issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $295.00.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, Director Alan Higginson sold 825 shares of the 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 transaction, the director now directly owns 9,882 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,369,407.14. This represents a 7.71 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. 0.58% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of F5

A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Wedge Capital Management L L P NC purchased a new stake in F5 in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $61,386,000. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC raised its position in shares of F5 by 1,681.1% in the third quarter. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC now owns 285,639 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $62,898,000 after buying an additional 269,602 shares in the last quarter. Hotchkis & Wiley Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in F5 by 3.6% during the third quarter. Hotchkis & Wiley Capital Management LLC now owns 5,489,388 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $1,208,763,000 after buying an additional 191,020 shares during the period. Point72 Asset Management L.P. purchased a new position in F5 during the third quarter worth about $35,090,000. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC increased its stake in F5 by 8.0% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,573,995 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $345,560,000 after acquiring an additional 117,080 shares during the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

F5 Trading Down 1.4 %

Shares of FFIV stock traded down $4.22 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $297.26. 681,633 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 657,747. F5 has a 52-week low of $159.01 and a 52-week high of $308.00. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $259.25 and a 200 day simple moving average of $227.07. The stock has a market capitalization of $17.24 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.55, a P/E/G ratio of 4.06 and a beta of 1.06.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last issued its quarterly earnings results 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. F5 had a return on equity of 21.34% and a net margin of 20.58%. The firm had revenue of $747.00 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $730.43 million. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $2.76 EPS. Sell-side analysts anticipate that F5 will post 11.01 EPS for the current year.

F5 announced that its board has initiated a stock repurchase plan 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 buy up to 7.9% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are typically an indication that the company’s leadership 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.