Brokerages Set F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) Price Target at $282.56

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) has been assigned an average recommendation of “Hold” from the nine analysts that are covering the firm, Marketbeat reports. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, seven have given a hold recommendation and one has issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average 12 month target price among brokers that have covered the stock in the last year is $282.56.

Several brokerages have recently issued reports on FFIV. William Blair restated an “outperform” rating on shares of F5 in a research note on Tuesday, April 29th. Wall Street Zen lowered F5 from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, May 22nd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their price objective on F5 from $296.00 to $285.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, April 17th. Royal Bank of Canada restated a “sector perform” rating and issued a $290.00 target price on shares of F5 in a research report on Tuesday, April 29th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group raised their target price on F5 from $257.00 to $295.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 29th.

F5 Stock Down 1.2%

FFIV stock opened at $283.29 on Friday. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $267.88 and its 200-day moving average price is $268.56. F5 has a twelve month low of $164.45 and a twelve month high of $313.00. The stock has a market cap of $16.27 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.16, a PEG ratio of 3.85 and a beta of 1.00.

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

Insider Transactions at F5

In related news, Director Marianne Budnik sold 1,872 shares of F5 stock in a transaction on Friday, March 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $260.72, for a total value of $488,067.84. Following the transaction, the director now owns 1,207 shares in the company, valued at approximately $314,689.04. This trade represents a 60.80% 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. Also, Director Alan Higginson sold 1,272 shares of F5 stock in a transaction on Thursday, May 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $286.69, for a total value of $364,669.68. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 9,919 shares in the company, valued at $2,843,678.11. The trade was a 11.37% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 8,891 shares of company stock worth $2,418,732 over the last quarter. 0.52% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in FFIV. Barclays PLC boosted its holdings in F5 by 1.4% in the third quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 144,572 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $31,836,000 after acquiring an additional 2,008 shares during the last quarter. Park Avenue Securities LLC lifted its stake in shares of F5 by 17.0% during the fourth quarter. Park Avenue Securities LLC now owns 1,090 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $274,000 after purchasing an additional 158 shares in the last quarter. Koshinski Asset Management Inc. acquired a new position in shares of F5 during the fourth quarter worth about $202,000. Simon Quick Advisors LLC lifted its stake in shares of F5 by 17.5% during the fourth quarter. Simon Quick Advisors LLC now owns 1,633 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $411,000 after purchasing an additional 243 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Nisa Investment Advisors LLC lifted its stake in shares of F5 by 22.9% during the fourth quarter. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC now owns 34,686 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $8,722,000 after purchasing an additional 6,455 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.