F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) Director Michael L. Dreyer Sells 1,800 Shares

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV - Get Free Report) Director Michael L. Dreyer sold 1,800 shares of the company's stock in a transaction on Tuesday, May 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $285.96, for a total value of $514,728.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 4,376 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,251,360.96. This trade represents a 29.15% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link.

F5 Trading Up 0.2%

Shares of FFIV traded up $0.64 during mid-day trading on Monday, hitting $286.02. The company's stock had a trading volume of 346,358 shares, compared to its average volume of 568,416. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $268.40 and a 200 day simple moving average of $269.76. The firm has a market capitalization of $16.43 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.43, a P/E/G ratio of 3.85 and a beta of 1.00. F5, Inc. has a 1-year low of $164.45 and a 1-year high of $313.00.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Monday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.42 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.11 by $0.31. The firm had revenue of $590.16 million during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $719.91 million. F5 had a return on equity of 20.98% and a net margin of 20.58%. F5's revenue was up 7.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $2.91 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that F5, Inc. will post 11.2 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On F5

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in shares of F5 by 0.9% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 7,544,256 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $1,897,154,000 after purchasing an additional 64,261 shares during the last quarter. Hotchkis & Wiley Capital Management LLC grew its position in shares of F5 by 6.2% in the first quarter. Hotchkis & Wiley Capital Management LLC now owns 5,387,700 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $1,434,583,000 after purchasing an additional 312,415 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its position in shares of F5 by 1.9% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,604,362 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $402,536,000 after purchasing an additional 30,367 shares during the last quarter. First Trust Advisors LP raised its holdings in shares of F5 by 3.1% in the fourth quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 1,259,848 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $316,814,000 after acquiring an additional 37,354 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Northern Trust Corp raised its holdings in shares of F5 by 15.5% in the first quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 1,054,701 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $280,835,000 after acquiring an additional 141,680 shares during the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts recently issued reports on the company. Morgan Stanley increased their target price on F5 from $269.00 to $280.00 and gave the stock an "equal weight" rating in a research note on Tuesday, April 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their price target on F5 from $296.00 to $285.00 and set a "neutral" rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, April 17th. William Blair restated an "outperform" rating on shares of F5 in a research note on Tuesday, April 29th. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed a "sector perform" rating and set a $290.00 price objective on shares of F5 in a research report on Tuesday, April 29th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a "buy" rating and set a $320.00 price objective on shares of F5 in a research report on Tuesday, April 29th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $282.56.

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.