F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Reaches New 12-Month High Following Analyst Upgrade

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) shares reached a new 52-week high during trading on Wednesday after Barclays raised their price target on the stock from $246.00 to $296.00. Barclays currently has an equal weight rating on the stock. F5 traded as high as $309.47 and last traded at $286.70, with a volume of 40735 shares changing hands. The stock had previously closed at $269.72.

FFIV has been the subject of several other research reports. Evercore ISI increased their target price on F5 from $240.00 to $270.00 and gave the stock an “in-line” rating in a research report on Friday, January 17th. Royal Bank of Canada increased their target price on F5 from $240.00 to $260.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 3rd. Morgan Stanley increased their target price on F5 from $262.00 to $310.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday. The Goldman Sachs Group increased 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. Finally, Piper Sandler increased their target price on F5 from $186.00 to $246.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, one has issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $279.13.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other F5 news, Director Alan Higginson sold 825 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $239.77, for a total transaction of $197,810.25. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 9,882 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,369,407.14. This trade represents a 7.71 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. 0.58% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On F5

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of FFIV. Wingate Wealth Advisors Inc. bought a new position in F5 during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $99,000. Savant Capital LLC boosted its stake in F5 by 11.8% during the fourth quarter. Savant Capital LLC now owns 1,119 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $281,000 after buying an additional 118 shares during the last quarter. Moloney Securities Asset Management LLC bought a new position in F5 during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $615,000. Apollon Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in F5 during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $360,000. Finally, Lecap Asset Management Ltd. bought a new position in F5 during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $1,683,000. 90.66% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

F5 Stock Up 3.3 %

The business has a 50 day moving average of $256.94 and a 200 day moving average of $226.03. The company has a market capitalization of $16.33 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.43, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.68 and a beta of 1.06.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last announced its quarterly 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 company had revenue of $747.00 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $730.43 million. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $2.76 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts anticipate that F5, Inc. will post 11.01 EPS for the current year.

F5 announced that its board has initiated a stock repurchase plan on Monday, October 28th that authorizes the company to repurchase $1.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the network technology company to purchase up to 7.9% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are often a sign that the company’s board of directors believes its shares are 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.