F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Sets New 52-Week High – What’s Next?

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV)’s stock price reached a new 52-week high during trading on Thursday . The stock traded as high as $264.73 and last traded at $263.81, with a volume of 20914 shares trading hands. The stock had previously closed at $262.30.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

FFIV has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. Royal Bank of Canada upped their target price on F5 from $240.00 to $260.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a report on Friday, January 3rd. Barclays boosted their price target on shares of F5 from $214.00 to $246.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their price objective on shares of F5 from $212.00 to $241.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. Piper Sandler boosted their target price on shares of F5 from $186.00 to $246.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded shares of F5 from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $246.00.

F5 Stock Performance

The company’s 50-day moving average price is $253.16 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $220.60. The stock has a market cap of $15.47 billion, a PE ratio of 27.61, a PEG ratio of 3.44 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 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.45 by $0.22. The firm had revenue of $747.00 million during 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 company’s revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $2.76 earnings per share. Equities research analysts forecast that F5, Inc. will post 11.01 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

F5 declared that its Board of Directors has approved a share repurchase plan on Monday, October 28th that allows the company to buyback $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization allows the network technology company to purchase up to 7.9% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are typically a sign that the company’s board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CFO Francis J. Pelzer sold 600 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $217.67, for a total transaction of $130,602.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 29,825 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $6,492,007.75. This represents a 1.97 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, Director Alan Higginson sold 825 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $239.77, for a total transaction of $197,810.25. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 9,882 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,369,407.14. This trade represents a 7.71 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders own 0.58% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of FFIV. Pacer Advisors Inc. increased its stake in shares of F5 by 6,700.2% during the second quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 848,388 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $146,118,000 after buying an additional 835,912 shares during the period. Wedge Capital Management L L P NC purchased a new stake in F5 in the third quarter worth about $61,386,000. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC boosted its position in shares of 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 worth $62,898,000 after purchasing an additional 269,602 shares in the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC grew its stake in shares of F5 by 48.9% in the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 652,972 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $111,932,000 after buying an additional 214,351 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Hotchkis & Wiley Capital Management LLC increased its position in 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 valued at $1,208,763,000 after buying an additional 191,020 shares in the last quarter. 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.