F5's (FFIV) "Outperform" Rating Reaffirmed at Royal Bank Of Canada

Key Points

• Royal Bank of Canada reiterated its Outperform rating on F5 and kept a $425 price target, implying about 12% upside from the prior close.
• F5 has drawn generally positive analyst sentiment overall, with 7 Buy ratings, 4 Hold ratings, and 1 Sell; the consensus target is $369.44 and the stock is rated Moderate Buy.
• The company recently beat quarterly estimates, reporting $3.90 EPS on $811.7 million in revenue, and it also issued full-year guidance above current analyst expectations.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV - Get Free Report)'s stock had its "outperform" rating reiterated by equities researchers at Royal Bank Of Canada in a research report issued on Friday,Benzinga reports. They presently have a $425.00 price target on the network technology company's stock. Royal Bank Of Canada's price objective suggests a potential upside of 12.27% from the stock's current price.

FFIV has been the subject of several other research reports. Evercore raised F5 from an "in-line" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $475.00 target price for the company in a research report on Monday, May 18th. Barclays reissued an "overweight" rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Tuesday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on F5 from $355.00 to $365.00 and gave the stock an "overweight" rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 29th. Morgan Stanley increased their target price on F5 from $340.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an "equal weight" rating in a research report on Wednesday, May 20th. Finally, Weiss Ratings raised F5 from a "hold (c+)" rating to a "buy (b-)" rating in a research report on Monday, March 30th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, four have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $369.44.

F5 Price Performance

FFIV traded down $4.89 during midday trading on Friday, reaching $378.54. 192,149 shares of the company's stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 817,060. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $325.16 and a two-hundred day moving average of $285.18. The stock has a market capitalization of $21.36 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.01, a P/E/G ratio of 8.92 and a beta of 1.00. F5 has a 52 week low of $223.76 and a 52 week high of $399.59.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.90 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $3.47 by $0.43. F5 had a return on equity of 21.50% and a net margin of 21.96%.The business had revenue of $811.70 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $783.82 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $3.42 EPS. F5's quarterly 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. Sell-side analysts forecast that F5 will post 12.79 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at F5

In other F5 news, CFO Edward Cooper Werner sold 1,500 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, May 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $350.00, for a total transaction of $525,000.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer directly owned 2,906 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,017,100. This trade represents a 34.04% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 1,328 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, May 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $330.58, for a total value of $439,010.24. Following the sale, the executive vice president owned 8,060 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,664,474.80. This represents a 14.15% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. In the last quarter, insiders sold 24,491 shares of company stock worth $7,966,227. Insiders own 0.48% of the company's stock.

Institutional Trading of F5

Several institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Hazlett Burt & Watson Inc. purchased a new position in shares of F5 in the 4th quarter worth $26,000. Hantz Financial Services Inc. boosted its stake in shares of F5 by 109.8% in the 4th quarter. Hantz Financial Services Inc. now owns 107 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $27,000 after buying an additional 56 shares during the last quarter. Elyxium Wealth LLC purchased a new position in shares of F5 in the 4th quarter worth $28,000. SJS Investment Consulting Inc. boosted its stake in shares of F5 by 963.6% in the 1st quarter. SJS Investment Consulting Inc. now owns 117 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $34,000 after buying an additional 106 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Capital Advisors Ltd. LLC boosted its stake in shares of F5 by 113.8% in the 1st quarter. Capital Advisors Ltd. LLC now owns 124 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $36,000 after buying an additional 66 shares during the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other 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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