F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Stock Rating Reaffirmed by Needham & Company LLC

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV)‘s stock had its “buy” rating reiterated by research analysts at Needham & Company LLC in a note issued to investors on Tuesday, Benzinga reports. They presently have a $220.00 price objective on the network technology company’s stock. Needham & Company LLC’s target price indicates a potential upside of 32.04% from the stock’s previous close.

A number of other equities analysts have also recently weighed in on FFIV. Piper Sandler increased their price target on F5 from $170.00 to $187.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 30th. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their price target on F5 from $156.00 to $179.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 30th. KeyCorp increased their price target on F5 from $186.00 to $204.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, January 18th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on F5 from $197.00 to $205.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, April 11th. Finally, Barclays increased their target price on F5 from $163.00 to $206.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 30th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating, two have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $185.10.

F5 Stock Up 0.8 %

Shares of NASDAQ:FFIV opened at $166.62 on Tuesday. The business has a fifty day moving average of $187.30 and a two-hundred day moving average of $176.82. The stock has a market cap of $9.80 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.95, a PEG ratio of 2.68 and a beta of 1.11. F5 has a 52-week low of $129.93 and a 52-week high of $199.49.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last issued its earnings results on Monday, April 29th. The network technology company reported $2.91 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.88 by $0.03. The company had revenue of $681.00 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $685.47 million. F5 had a return on equity of 21.72% and a net margin of 17.91%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 3.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $1.70 EPS. On average, equities analysts anticipate that F5 will post 9.59 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at F5

In other F5 news, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 851 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $183.06, for a total value of $155,784.06. Following the sale, the executive vice president now owns 15,008 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,747,364.48. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. In other news, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 851 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $183.06, for a total transaction of $155,784.06. Following the sale, the executive vice president now owns 15,008 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,747,364.48. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Francis J. Pelzer sold 500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, April 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $178.81, for a total value of $89,405.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 31,290 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,594,964.90. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 10,201 shares of company stock valued at $1,908,065 in the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 0.58% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On F5

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in shares of F5 by 1.8% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 7,435,868 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $1,330,872,000 after acquiring an additional 131,341 shares in the last quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. grew its stake in F5 by 13.3% during the 3rd quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 1,812,095 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $292,001,000 after buying an additional 212,784 shares during the last quarter. Lyrical Asset Management LP grew its stake in F5 by 38.3% during the 4th quarter. Lyrical Asset Management LP now owns 1,145,302 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $204,986,000 after buying an additional 317,263 shares during the last quarter. First Trust Advisors LP grew its stake in F5 by 0.5% during the 4th quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 1,122,995 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $200,994,000 after buying an additional 6,010 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Westfield Capital Management Co. LP grew its stake in F5 by 6.4% during the 3rd quarter. Westfield Capital Management Co. LP now owns 748,118 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $120,552,000 after buying an additional 44,758 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

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.