Short Interest in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) Decreases By 19.5%

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) was the target of a significant drop in short interest during the month of June. As of June 15th, there was short interest totalling 2,400,000 shares, a drop of 19.5% from the May 31st total of 2,980,000 shares. Currently, 4.1% of the shares of the company are sold short. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 520,500 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 4.6 days.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CFO Francis J. Pelzer sold 500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, June 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $170.00, for a total transaction of $85,000.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 31,608 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,373,360. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. In other news, CFO Francis J. Pelzer sold 500 shares of F5 stock in a transaction dated Thursday, June 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $170.00, for a total value of $85,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 31,608 shares in the company, valued at $5,373,360. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, EVP Scot Frazier Rogers sold 3,315 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, June 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $168.46, for a total transaction of $558,444.90. Following the sale, the executive vice president now owns 19,493 shares in the company, valued at $3,283,790.78. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 11,766 shares of company stock valued at $2,016,700 over the last ninety days. 0.58% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On F5

Several institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in FFIV. FMR LLC raised its position in F5 by 0.9% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 27,546 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $4,439,000 after acquiring an additional 239 shares during the period. Algert Global LLC purchased a new stake in shares of F5 in the third quarter worth $221,000. Treasurer of the State of North Carolina raised its position in shares of F5 by 0.3% during the 3rd quarter. Treasurer of the State of North Carolina now owns 27,226 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $4,387,000 after purchasing an additional 90 shares during the period. Qube Research & Technologies Ltd lifted its stake in shares of F5 by 1.4% during the 3rd quarter. Qube Research & Technologies Ltd now owns 152,277 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $24,538,000 after buying an additional 2,061 shares in the last quarter. Finally, AQR Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of F5 by 2.0% during the 3rd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 340,615 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $54,887,000 after buying an additional 6,612 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

F5 Trading Down 0.6 %

Shares of FFIV opened at $171.18 on Tuesday. The company has a market cap of $10.03 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.50, a P/E/G ratio of 2.29 and a beta of 1.08. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $170.64 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $179.42. F5 has a 12 month low of $142.16 and a 12 month high of $199.49.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last released its quarterly earnings data on Monday, April 29th. The network technology company reported $2.91 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.88 by $0.03. F5 had a net margin of 17.91% and a return on equity of 21.41%. The firm had revenue of $681.00 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $685.47 million. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $1.70 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 3.1% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts forecast that F5 will post 9.64 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages have recently weighed in on FFIV. Royal Bank of Canada reduced their price target on F5 from $204.00 to $182.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, April 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on F5 from $197.00 to $205.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, April 11th. Barclays decreased their price target on F5 from $206.00 to $189.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, April 30th. Evercore ISI cut their price objective on shares of F5 from $200.00 to $180.00 and set an “in-line” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, April 30th. Finally, Piper Sandler reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and set a $167.00 price objective (down previously from $187.00) on shares of F5 in a research note on Tuesday, April 30th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating, two have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $185.10.

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.