F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) CTO Sells $644,555.34 in Stock

Key Points

• F5 CTO Kunal Anand sold 1,989 shares for about $644,555 under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 plan, reducing his holdings by 12.01% to 14,578 shares.
• F5’s latest quarterly results beat estimates: earnings were $4.42 per share and revenue was $917.43 million, up 13.2% year over year. The company also authorized a $1.5 billion share repurchase program.
• F5 shares fell to $311.74 in Thursday trading; analysts’ consensus rating was Hold, with an average price target of $443.

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV - Get Free Report) CTO Kunal Anand sold 1,989 shares of the company's stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $324.06, for a total transaction of $644,555.34. Following the completion of the sale, the chief technology officer owned 14,578 shares of the company's stock, valued at $4,724,146.68. This represents a 12.01% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan.

F5 Stock Performance

F5 stock traded down $17.98 during trading hours on Thursday, reaching $311.74. 1,380,704 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 751,325. F5, Inc. has a 12 month low of $223.76 and a 12 month high of $483.30. The company has a current ratio of 1.73, a quick ratio of 1.59 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $425.41 and a 200 day moving average of $363.56. The firm has a market cap of $17.65 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.88, a PEG ratio of 2.94 and a beta of 1.07.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 27th. The network technology company reported $4.42 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $4.26 by $0.16. F5 had a return on equity of 21.00% and a net margin of 21.14%. The business had revenue of $917.43 million during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $884.03 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $4.39 EPS. The firm's revenue was up 13.2% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts anticipate that F5, Inc. will post 14.19 earnings per share for the current year.

F5 announced that its Board of Directors has approved a share buyback program on Tuesday, October 27th that permits the company to repurchase $1.50 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization permits the network technology company to repurchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are often a sign that the company's management believes its shares are undervalued.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of FFIV. BlackRock Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of F5 in the 2nd quarter valued at $2,611,637,000. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. grew its holdings in shares of F5 by 23.9% in the 3rd quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 732,219 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $325,969,000 after purchasing an additional 141,131 shares during the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC increased its position in shares of F5 by 24.8% during the 2nd quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 726,844 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $302,338,000 after purchasing an additional 144,534 shares in the last quarter. William Blair Investment Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of F5 during the 2nd quarter worth about $243,865,000. Finally, Amundi lifted its holdings in F5 by 96.0% during the 2nd quarter. Amundi now owns 555,809 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $231,194,000 after purchasing an additional 272,273 shares during the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research analysts recently commented on the company. Wolfe Research lowered F5 from a "strong-buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a research note on Thursday, October 29th. Wells Fargo & Company set a $500.00 price target on shares of F5 in a research note on Wednesday, October 28th. Weiss Ratings lowered shares of F5 from a "buy (b)" rating to a "buy (b-)" rating in a report on Tuesday. Morgan Stanley boosted their price target on shares of F5 from $415.00 to $448.00 and gave the company an "equal weight" rating in a report on Wednesday, October 28th. Finally, Barclays restated a "mixed" rating on shares of F5 in a research note on Wednesday, October 28th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, seven have assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and a consensus target price of $443.00.

F5 Company Profile

F5, Inc NASDAQ: FFIV provides application delivery, security and traffic management solutions for enterprises, service providers and public-sector organizations. Its offerings are designed to help customers secure, optimize and manage applications and application programming interfaces (APIs) across data centers, private and public clouds, and edge environments.

The company's portfolio includes BIG-IP software and appliances, NGINX application delivery and web server technologies, and F5 Distributed Cloud services.

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