F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) Given Consensus Recommendation of "Hold" by Brokerages

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV - Get Free Report) has earned a consensus rating of "Hold" from the nine brokerages that are presently covering the company, MarketBeat.com reports. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and two have given a buy recommendation to the company. The average 1 year target price among brokers that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $233.56.

Several research analysts have recently issued reports on FFIV shares. Barclays raised their target price on shares of F5 from $214.00 to $246.00 and gave the company an "equal weight" rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. Morgan Stanley lifted their target price on shares of F5 from $215.00 to $230.00 and gave the stock an "equal weight" rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. StockNews.com raised F5 from a "buy" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on F5 from $225.00 to $250.00 and gave the stock a "neutral" rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada upped their price objective on F5 from $205.00 to $240.00 and gave the company a "sector perform" rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th.

Insider Activity

In other news, Director Alan Higginson sold 1,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, September 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $201.65, for a total transaction of $201,650.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 10,707 shares of the company's stock, valued at $2,159,066.55. This represents a 8.54 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CFO Francis J. Pelzer sold 600 shares of the business's stock in a transaction on Friday, September 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $217.50, for a total transaction of $130,500.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 30,425 shares in the company, valued at $6,617,437.50. This represents a 1.93 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 4,475 shares of company stock worth $977,039 in the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 0.58% of the company's stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of FFIV. Pacer Advisors Inc. boosted its position in F5 by 6,700.2% during the 2nd quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 848,388 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $146,118,000 after acquiring an additional 835,912 shares during the last quarter. Wedge Capital Management L L P NC bought a new position in F5 in the third quarter valued at $61,386,000. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC grew its position in 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 valued at $62,898,000 after purchasing an additional 269,602 shares in the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC increased its stake in F5 by 48.9% in 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 buying an additional 214,351 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Hotchkis & Wiley Capital Management LLC lifted 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 worth $1,208,763,000 after buying an additional 191,020 shares in the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

F5 Stock Up 0.1 %

NASDAQ:FFIV traded up $0.28 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $250.35. 294,717 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 533,284. The company has a market capitalization of $14.68 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.19, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.38 and a beta of 1.05. The company's 50 day moving average is $230.04 and its two-hundred day moving average is $199.47. F5 has a twelve month low of $159.01 and a twelve month high of $252.30.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Monday, October 28th. The network technology company reported $3.67 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.45 by $0.22. The business 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 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 posted $2.76 earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts expect that F5 will post 11.01 EPS for the current year.

F5 announced that its board has approved a share buyback program 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 reacquire up to 7.9% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are usually an indication that the company's board of directors 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.