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

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV - Get Free Report) had its target price upped by equities researchers at Morgan Stanley from $269.00 to $280.00 in a research note issued to investors on Tuesday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has an "equal weight" rating on the network technology company's stock. Morgan Stanley's price target indicates a potential upside of 4.16% from the stock's current price.

Other analysts have also issued research reports about the company. Needham & Company LLC restated a "buy" rating and set a $320.00 price target on shares of F5 in a report on Tuesday. Royal Bank of Canada increased their target price on shares of F5 from $260.00 to $310.00 and gave the company a "sector perform" rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 29th. Evercore ISI lifted their price target on shares of F5 from $240.00 to $270.00 and gave the stock an "in-line" rating in a research note on Friday, January 17th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their price objective on shares of F5 from $296.00 to $285.00 and set a "neutral" rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, April 17th. Finally, Barclays raised their price objective on shares of F5 from $246.00 to $296.00 and gave the stock an "equal weight" rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 29th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have issued a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of "Hold" and a consensus target price of $282.56.

F5 Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:FFIV traded up $3.04 on Tuesday, reaching $268.81. The company's stock had a trading volume of 514,304 shares, compared to its average volume of 575,969. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $266.38 and a 200 day simple moving average of $261.65. F5 has a 52-week low of $164.45 and a 52-week high of $313.00. The company has a market cap of $15.50 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.72, a PEG ratio of 3.85 and a beta of 1.14.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Monday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.42 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.11 by $0.31. F5 had a return on equity of 20.98% and a net margin of 20.58%. The company had revenue of $590.16 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $719.91 million. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $2.91 earnings per share. The firm's revenue was up 7.3% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts forecast that F5 will post 11.2 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at F5

In other F5 news, Director Marianne Budnik sold 1,872 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction on Friday, March 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $260.72, for a total transaction of $488,067.84. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 1,207 shares in the company, valued at $314,689.04. This trade represents a 60.80 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 1,300 shares of the company's stock in a transaction on Tuesday, April 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $265.37, for a total value of $344,981.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 148,647 shares of the company's stock, valued at $39,446,454.39. This represents a 0.87 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 17,504 shares of company stock valued at $5,088,492. 0.52% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in FFIV. Golden State Wealth Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of F5 by 275.0% during the first quarter. Golden State Wealth Management LLC now owns 105 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $28,000 after purchasing an additional 77 shares in the last quarter. Park Square Financial Group LLC purchased a new stake in F5 during the fourth quarter worth $31,000. Crowley Wealth Management Inc. bought a new stake in F5 during the 4th quarter valued at $35,000. Hurley Capital LLC purchased a new position in shares of F5 in the 4th quarter valued at $43,000. Finally, Friedenthal Financial purchased a new position in shares of F5 in the 4th quarter valued at $50,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 90.66% of the company's stock.

About F5

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.