F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) Short Interest Update

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV - Get Free Report) was the target of a large increase in short interest in October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 2,320,000 shares, an increase of 9.4% from the October 15th total of 2,120,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 603,700 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 3.8 days. Approximately 4.0% of the company's stock are short sold.

Insider Activity at F5

In other F5 news, Director Alan Higginson sold 1,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, September 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $201.65, for a total transaction of $201,650.00. Following the transaction, the director now owns 10,707 shares of the company's stock, valued at $2,159,066.55. This trade represents a 8.54 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 1,450 shares of the company's stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $218.26, for a total value of $316,477.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 121,122 shares in the company, valued at approximately $26,436,087.72. This represents a 1.18 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 4,250 shares of company stock valued at $897,594. Corporate insiders own 0.58% of the company's stock.

Institutional Trading of F5

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Bessemer Group Inc. boosted its stake in F5 by 424.1% during the 1st quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. now owns 7,604 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $1,442,000 after purchasing an additional 6,153 shares during the period. Chase Investment Counsel Corp acquired a new stake in F5 in the 3rd quarter worth $4,726,000. Bank of Montreal Can increased its holdings in shares of F5 by 3.9% during the 2nd quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 308,159 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $53,247,000 after purchasing an additional 11,525 shares during the period. Janus Henderson Group PLC lifted its position in shares of F5 by 195.1% in the 1st quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC now owns 21,994 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $4,170,000 after acquiring an additional 14,541 shares during the period. Finally, Dai ichi Life Insurance Company Ltd grew its holdings in shares of F5 by 10.5% during the 2nd quarter. Dai ichi Life Insurance Company Ltd now owns 28,820 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $4,964,000 after purchasing an additional 2,730 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 90.66% of the company's stock.

F5 Trading Down 1.5 %

Shares of F5 stock traded down $3.69 on Friday, reaching $238.36. 491,461 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 736,844. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $222.72 and a 200-day moving average price of $194.27. The firm has a market capitalization of $13.89 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.93, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.22 and a beta of 1.05. F5 has a fifty-two week low of $159.01 and a fifty-two week high of $250.46.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV - Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Monday, October 28th. The network technology company reported $3.67 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $3.45 by $0.22. F5 had a return on equity of 20.80% and a net margin of 20.13%. The firm had revenue of $747.00 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $730.43 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $2.76 earnings per share. The business's quarterly revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities analysts anticipate that F5 will post 11.01 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

F5 announced that its Board of Directors has authorized a share repurchase program on Monday, October 28th that authorizes the company to repurchase $1.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the network technology company to buy up to 7.9% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are typically a sign that the company's board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

Analyst Ratings Changes

FFIV has been the topic of a number of research reports. Needham & Company LLC increased their target price on shares of F5 from $220.00 to $235.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a report on Tuesday, July 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on shares of F5 from $225.00 to $250.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. Evercore ISI raised their target price on shares of F5 from $180.00 to $210.00 and gave the stock an "in-line" rating in a report on Tuesday, July 30th. Barclays lifted their target price on F5 from $214.00 to $246.00 and gave the company an "equal weight" rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. Finally, Morgan Stanley increased their price target on F5 from $215.00 to $230.00 and gave the stock an "equal weight" rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average target price of $233.56.

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.