JPMorgan Chase & Co. Issues Positive Forecast for F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Stock Price

Key Points

• JPMorgan raised its price target on F5 to $355 (from $345) and maintains an "overweight" rating, implying roughly a 16% upside from the current price.
• F5 reported a solid quarter—Q4 EPS of $4.45 vs. $3.63 expected and revenue of $822.5M vs. $756.0M expected—and provided Q2 2026 EPS guidance of 3.340–3.460 and FY2026 guidance of 15.650–16.050.
• Institutional ownership is high at about 90.66% with several large funds adding stakes, while insiders have sold ~17,961 shares (~$4.96M) over the last 90 days, leaving insiders with ~0.48% ownership.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV - Get Free Report) had its target price upped by investment analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. from $345.00 to $355.00 in a research report issued on Thursday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has an "overweight" rating on the network technology company's stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s price objective suggests a potential upside of 16.05% from the company's current price.

FFIV has been the subject of a number of other research reports. Zacks Research upgraded shares of F5 from a "strong sell" rating to a "hold" rating in a research report on Friday, January 9th. Morgan Stanley lowered their price objective on shares of F5 from $336.00 to $296.00 and set an "equal weight" rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, December 17th. Weiss Ratings upgraded shares of F5 from a "hold (c+)" rating to a "buy (b-)" rating in a research report on Monday, March 30th. Barclays increased their price objective on shares of F5 from $267.00 to $283.00 and gave the company an "equal weight" rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 28th. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada boosted their price objective on F5 from $325.00 to $345.00 and gave the stock an "outperform" rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 28th. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have assigned a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $311.00.

F5 Trading Up 2.3%

Shares of NASDAQ:FFIV traded up $6.81 during midday trading on Thursday, reaching $305.90. 269,535 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 831,664. The business's fifty day moving average is $285.46 and its two-hundred day moving average is $275.38. F5 has a one year low of $223.76 and a one year high of $346.00. The stock has a market cap of $17.29 billion, a PE ratio of 25.33, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 8.25 and a beta of 0.93.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV - Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, January 27th. The network technology company reported $4.45 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $3.63 by $0.82. F5 had a net margin of 22.45% and a return on equity of 22.08%. The firm had revenue of $822.47 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $755.97 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $3.84 earnings per share. F5's revenue for the quarter was up 7.3% on a year-over-year basis. F5 has set its Q2 2026 guidance at 3.340-3.460 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 15.650-16.050 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that F5 will post 11.2 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity at F5

In other news, CFO Edward Cooper Werner sold 969 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $282.20, for a total value of $273,451.80. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer owned 5,305 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,497,071. This trade represents a 15.44% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, Director Michael L. Dreyer sold 3,067 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $282.41, for a total transaction of $866,151.47. Following the completion of the sale, the director owned 1,309 shares of the company's stock, valued at $369,674.69. This trade represents a 70.09% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders sold a total of 17,961 shares of company stock valued at $4,959,115 over the last ninety days. 0.48% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On F5

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in FFIV. Jericho Capital Asset Management L.P. bought a new stake in F5 during the 4th quarter valued at about $579,699,000. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. boosted its holdings 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 purchasing an additional 1,162,519 shares during the period. First Trust Advisors LP boosted its holdings 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 purchasing an additional 1,119,291 shares during the period. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of F5 in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $205,706,000. Finally, Deutsche Bank AG boosted its holdings 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 purchasing an additional 610,437 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 90.66% of the company's stock.

F5 Company Profile

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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