F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Hits New 12-Month High – Should You Buy?

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) hit a new 52-week high during mid-day trading on Monday . The company traded as high as $253.62 and last traded at $252.14, with a volume of 479566 shares traded. The stock had previously closed at $250.35.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts recently commented on FFIV shares. Barclays lifted their price target on F5 from $214.00 to $246.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their price target on F5 from $205.00 to $240.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on F5 from $215.00 to $230.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on F5 from $225.00 to $250.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group lifted 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. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $233.56.

F5 Price Performance

The stock has a market cap of $14.90 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.27, a PEG ratio of 3.41 and a beta of 1.06. The company has a fifty day moving average of $231.22 and a 200 day moving average of $200.93.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last announced its 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. 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 period in the previous year, the business earned $2.76 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts anticipate that F5, Inc. will post 11.01 EPS for the current year.

F5 declared that its board has approved a stock 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 repurchase up to 7.9% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are typically a sign that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CFO Francis J. Pelzer sold 600 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, September 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $217.50, for a total value of $130,500.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 30,425 shares in the company, valued at approximately $6,617,437.50. This trade represents a 1.93 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, Director Alan Higginson sold 825 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 19th. The shares were 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 owns 9,882 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,369,407.14. The trade was a 7.71 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 4,475 shares of company stock valued at $977,039 over the last three months. 0.58% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Family Firm Inc. bought a new position in F5 in the second quarter valued at approximately $25,000. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC bought a new position in F5 in the third quarter valued at approximately $28,000. Quest Partners LLC boosted its stake in F5 by 9,100.0% in the second quarter. Quest Partners LLC now owns 184 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $32,000 after acquiring an additional 182 shares during the last quarter. Kathleen S. Wright Associates Inc. bought a new position in shares of F5 during the third quarter worth $32,000. Finally, Blue Trust Inc. boosted its position in shares of F5 by 49.7% during the second quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 241 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $46,000 after purchasing an additional 80 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

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.