F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Price Target Raised to $262.00

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) had its price target increased by Morgan Stanley from $230.00 to $262.00 in a research report released on Tuesday,Benzinga reports. They currently have an equal weight rating on the network technology company’s stock.

Several other equities research analysts have also recently weighed in on FFIV. Piper Sandler increased their price objective on shares of F5 from $186.00 to $246.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their price objective on F5 from $212.00 to $241.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. Royal Bank of Canada upped their target price on F5 from $205.00 to $240.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. StockNews.com upgraded F5 from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Finally, Barclays increased their price target on F5 from $214.00 to $246.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, F5 has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $237.11.

F5 Trading Down 0.6 %

Shares of FFIV opened at $250.41 on Tuesday. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $240.28 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $207.77. F5 has a 12 month low of $159.01 and a 12 month high of $264.50. The company has a market capitalization of $14.68 billion, a PE ratio of 26.19, a PEG ratio of 3.52 and a beta of 1.06.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Monday, October 28th. The network technology company reported $3.67 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.45 by $0.22. The company had revenue of $747.00 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $730.43 million. F5 had a return on equity of 20.80% and a net margin of 20.13%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $2.76 earnings per share. Equities research analysts predict that F5 will post 11.01 EPS for the current fiscal year.

F5 announced that its board has approved a stock repurchase program on Monday, October 28th that allows the company to buyback $1.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization allows the network technology company to repurchase up to 7.9% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are typically an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 1,450 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, October 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $218.26, for a total value of $316,477.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 121,122 shares in the company, valued at $26,436,087.72. This represents a 1.18 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, Director Alan Higginson sold 825 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated 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 in the company, valued at $2,369,407.14. The trade was a 7.71 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 2,875 shares of company stock worth $644,889 in the last quarter. Insiders own 0.58% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On F5

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Pacer Advisors Inc. grew its holdings 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. Wedge Capital Management L L P NC purchased a new position in F5 in the third quarter worth $61,386,000. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC grew its stake in F5 by 1,681.1% in the 3rd quarter. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC now owns 285,639 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $62,898,000 after purchasing an additional 269,602 shares during the period. AQR Capital Management LLC increased its position in shares of F5 by 48.9% during the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 652,972 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $111,932,000 after purchasing an additional 214,351 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Hotchkis & Wiley Capital Management LLC raised its stake in shares of 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 period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

About F5

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.