Barclays Issues Positive Forecast for F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Stock Price

Key Points

• Barclays raised its price target on F5 from $292 to $386 while keeping an “equal weight” rating, implying only modest upside from the prior close. The move reflects a more positive outlook on the stock, even though the stance remains neutral.
• Other analysts remain broadly constructive on F5, with several recent target increases and upgrades from firms like Evercore, JPMorgan, and Piper Sandler. MarketBeat says the stock now has a consensus “Hold” rating with an average target price of $379.89.
• F5 has posted solid operating results, including quarterly EPS of $3.90, which beat estimates, and revenue of $811.7 million, up 11% year over year. The company also issued guidance above prior expectations for both Q3 2026 and FY 2026.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV - Get Free Report) had its price objective upped by stock analysts at Barclays from $292.00 to $386.00 in a report issued on Friday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has an "equal weight" rating on the network technology company's stock. Barclays's price objective indicates a potential upside of 0.67% from the stock's previous close.

A number of other research analysts have also commented on FFIV. Evercore raised F5 from an "in-line" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $475.00 price target on the stock in a report on Monday, May 18th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on shares of F5 from $355.00 to $365.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 29th. Piper Sandler lifted their target price on F5 from $356.00 to $423.00 and gave the stock an "overweight" rating in a report on Friday. Bank of America boosted their target price on F5 from $250.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock an "underperform" rating in a research report on Tuesday. Finally, Needham & Company LLC reiterated a "hold" rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Wednesday, April 29th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, F5 presently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average target price of $379.89.

F5 Stock Up 0.0%

NASDAQ FFIV traded up $0.02 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $383.45. The company had a trading volume of 1,651,156 shares, compared to its average volume of 830,995. F5 has a fifty-two week low of $223.76 and a fifty-two week high of $399.59. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $325.16 and a 200-day simple moving average of $285.18. The firm has a market cap of $21.63 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.46, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 8.92 and a beta of 1.00.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.90 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.47 by $0.43. F5 had a net margin of 21.96% and a return on equity of 21.50%. The company had revenue of $811.70 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $783.82 million. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $3.42 earnings per share. F5's revenue was up 11.0% compared to the same quarter last year. F5 has set its Q3 2026 guidance at 3.910-4.030 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 16.250-16.550 EPS. Equities analysts forecast that F5 will post 12.79 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at F5

In related news, EVP Chad Michael Whalen sold 6,200 shares of the business's stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $350.19, for a total transaction of $2,171,178.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president owned 20,832 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $7,295,158.08. The trade was a 22.94% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 3,783 shares of the business's stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $337.39, for a total value of $1,276,346.37. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 146,989 shares of the company's stock, valued at $49,592,618.71. This represents a 2.51% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders have sold 24,491 shares of company stock worth $7,966,227 in the last ninety days. 0.48% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On F5

Several hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of FFIV. Jericho Capital Asset Management L.P. bought a new stake in shares of F5 in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $579,699,000. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. lifted its stake in shares of F5 by 15,103.5% in the fourth quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. now owns 1,170,216 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $298,709,000 after buying an additional 1,162,519 shares during the period. First Trust Advisors LP lifted its stake in shares of F5 by 68.5% in the fourth quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 2,753,652 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $702,897,000 after buying an additional 1,119,291 shares during the period. Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of F5 in the fourth quarter valued at about $205,706,000. Finally, Deutsche Bank AG lifted its stake in shares of F5 by 175.2% in the fourth quarter. Deutsche Bank AG now owns 958,947 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $244,781,000 after buying an additional 610,437 shares during the period. 90.66% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

About F5

F5 Inc NASDAQ: FFIV specializes in application services and delivery networking, helping organizations ensure the availability, performance and security of their applications. The company's core offerings include advanced load balancing, traffic management and application security solutions designed to optimize user experiences and protect against threats such as distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and web application exploits.

At the heart of F5's product portfolio is the BIG-IP platform, which provides a suite of software modules for local and global traffic management, secure web application firewalling and DNS service delivery.

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