F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Price Target Raised to $270.00

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) had its price objective raised by Evercore ISI from $240.00 to $270.00 in a report published on Friday,Benzinga reports. They currently have an in-line rating on the network technology company’s stock.

Several other research firms have also weighed in on FFIV. Piper Sandler boosted their target price on F5 from $186.00 to $246.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on F5 from $225.00 to $250.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their target price on F5 from $240.00 to $260.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a report on Friday, January 3rd. The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their target price on F5 from $212.00 to $241.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Finally, Morgan Stanley upped their price target on F5 from $230.00 to $262.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, December 17th. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, one has assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $251.25.

F5 Price Performance

Shares of F5 stock opened at $263.95 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $15.47 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.61, a P/E/G ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 1.06. F5 has a 52-week low of $159.01 and a 52-week high of $267.74. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $253.16 and a 200-day simple moving average of $221.29.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last posted its earnings results on Monday, October 28th. The network technology company reported $3.67 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.45 by $0.22. F5 had a return on equity of 20.80% and a net margin of 20.13%. The firm had revenue of $747.00 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $730.43 million. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $2.76 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts predict that F5 will post 11.01 earnings per share for the current year.

F5 announced that its board has initiated a share repurchase plan on Monday, October 28th that permits the company to buyback $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization permits the network technology company to purchase up to 7.9% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are typically an indication that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Activity

In other news, Director Alan Higginson sold 825 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 in the company, valued at approximately $2,369,407.14. The trade was a 7.71 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. 0.58% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of F5

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. SG Americas Securities LLC increased its position in shares of F5 by 47.8% during the fourth quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 30,087 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $7,566,000 after purchasing an additional 9,726 shares during the period. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of F5 by 22.9% during the fourth quarter. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC now owns 34,686 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $8,722,000 after purchasing an additional 6,455 shares during the period. Simon Quick Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of F5 by 17.5% during the fourth quarter. Simon Quick Advisors LLC now owns 1,633 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $411,000 after purchasing an additional 243 shares during the period. Addenda Capital Inc. grew its position in F5 by 43.5% in the fourth quarter. Addenda Capital Inc. now owns 50,314 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $12,652,000 after acquiring an additional 15,240 shares during the period. Finally, Koshinski Asset Management Inc. bought a new stake in F5 in the fourth quarter valued at $202,000. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.