F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Price Target Raised to $260.00

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) had its price target upped by Royal Bank of Canada from $240.00 to $260.00 in a report released on Friday morning,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has a sector perform rating on the network technology company’s stock.

Several other research analysts also recently commented on the company. Barclays boosted their target price on F5 from $214.00 to $246.00 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. The Goldman Sachs Group raised their target price on F5 from $212.00 to $241.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on shares of F5 from $225.00 to $250.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. Finally, Morgan Stanley increased their price objective on shares of F5 from $230.00 to $262.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, December 17th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, F5 presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $239.33.

F5 Price Performance

Shares of FFIV stock opened at $254.36 on Friday. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $248.34 and its 200 day simple moving average is $215.04. F5 has a one year low of $159.01 and a one year high of $264.50. The firm has a market cap of $14.91 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.61, a P/E/G ratio of 3.52 and a beta of 1.06.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last issued its earnings results on Monday, October 28th. The network technology company reported $3.67 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.45 by $0.22. F5 had a net margin of 20.13% and a return on equity of 20.80%. The company 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 earned $2.76 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts anticipate that F5 will post 11.01 earnings per share for the current year.

F5 announced that its board has authorized a share buyback 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 purchase 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.

Insider Activity at F5

In other F5 news, CFO Francis J. Pelzer sold 600 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, October 21st. The shares were 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 in the company, valued at approximately $6,492,007.75. The trade was a 1.97 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible 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 value of $197,810.25. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 9,882 shares in the company, valued at $2,369,407.14. This represents a 7.71 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.58% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of F5

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of FFIV. Hotchkis & Wiley Capital Management LLC increased its stake in F5 by 3.6% in the third 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 purchasing an additional 191,020 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its position in shares of F5 by 0.5% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 3,187,222 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $701,825,000 after buying an additional 16,663 shares in the last quarter. American Century Companies Inc. raised its stake in F5 by 10.5% during the 2nd quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 1,709,296 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $294,392,000 after buying an additional 162,820 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its stake in F5 by 8.0% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,573,995 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $345,560,000 after buying an additional 117,080 shares during the period. Finally, Pacer Advisors Inc. lifted its holdings in F5 by 6,700.2% during the second 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 in the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.