F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Price Target Raised to $380.00 at Morgan Stanley

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) had its price target upped by Morgan Stanley from $340.00 to $380.00 in a report released on Wednesday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has an “equal weight” rating on the network technology company’s stock. Morgan Stanley’s price objective suggests a potential downside of 1.27% from the company’s previous close.

Other analysts also recently issued research reports about the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on shares of F5 from $355.00 to $365.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 29th. Evercore raised shares of F5 from an “in-line” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $475.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Monday. Barclays increased their price objective on shares of F5 from $283.00 to $292.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 29th. Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Wednesday, April 29th. Finally, Piper Sandler reaffirmed an “overweight” rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Wednesday, April 29th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $353.00.

F5 Stock Performance

FFIV traded up $1.37 on Wednesday, reaching $384.87. 148,069 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 821,917. The company’s 50 day moving average is $310.78 and its 200-day moving average is $278.27. The company has a market cap of $21.71 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.58, a PEG ratio of 8.73 and a beta of 1.00. F5 has a twelve month low of $223.76 and a twelve month high of $391.25.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.90 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.47 by $0.43. The firm had revenue of $811.70 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $783.82 million. F5 had a net margin of 21.96% and a return on equity of 21.50%. The company’s revenue was up 11.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $3.42 EPS. F5 has set its Q3 2026 guidance at 3.910-4.030 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 16.250-16.550 EPS. Sell-side analysts forecast that F5 will post 12.79 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other F5 news, CFO Edward Cooper Werner sold 1,500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, May 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $350.00, for a total value of $525,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer owned 2,906 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,017,100. This trade represents a 34.04% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, EVP Chad Michael Whalen sold 6,200 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, May 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $350.19, for a total value of $2,171,178.00. Following the transaction, the executive vice president owned 20,832 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,295,158.08. This trade represents a 22.94% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders have sold 29,328 shares of company stock valued at $9,319,571 over the last three months. Company insiders own 0.48% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On F5

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in FFIV. Jericho Capital Asset Management L.P. purchased a new position in shares of F5 during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $579,699,000. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. boosted its stake in shares of F5 by 15,103.5% during the 4th quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. now owns 1,170,216 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $298,709,000 after buying an additional 1,162,519 shares during the last quarter. First Trust Advisors LP boosted its stake in shares of F5 by 68.5% during the 4th quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 2,753,652 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $702,897,000 after buying an additional 1,119,291 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new position in shares of F5 during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $205,706,000. Finally, Deutsche Bank AG boosted its stake in shares of F5 by 175.2% during the 4th quarter. Deutsche Bank AG now owns 958,947 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $244,781,000 after buying an additional 610,437 shares during the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About F5

F5 Inc (NASDAQ:FFIV) specializes in application services and delivery networking, helping organizations ensure the availability, performance and security of their applications. The company’s core offerings include advanced load balancing, traffic management and application security solutions designed to optimize user experiences and protect against threats such as distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and web application exploits.

At the heart of F5’s product portfolio is the BIG-IP platform, which provides a suite of software modules for local and global traffic management, secure web application firewalling and DNS service delivery.