F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Stock Price Expected to Rise, Piper Sandler Analyst Says

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV - Get Free Report) had its price objective increased by research analysts at Piper Sandler from $262.00 to $269.00 in a research note issued on Tuesday,Benzinga reports. The firm presently has a "neutral" rating on the network technology company's stock. Piper Sandler's price target would indicate a potential upside of 0.07% from the company's current price.

FFIV has been the topic of a number of other reports. Barclays dropped their target price on shares of F5 from $296.00 to $274.00 and set an "equal weight" rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday. William Blair reaffirmed an "outperform" rating on shares of F5 in a report on Tuesday. The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their target price on F5 from $257.00 to $295.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a report on Wednesday, January 29th. Evercore ISI raised their price target on F5 from $240.00 to $270.00 and gave the stock an "in-line" rating in a research note on Friday, January 17th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC reiterated a "buy" rating and issued a $320.00 price objective on shares of F5 in a research note on Tuesday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of "Hold" and an average target price of $282.56.

F5 Trading Up 1.1 %

NASDAQ:FFIV traded up $3.04 during trading hours on Tuesday, hitting $268.81. The company's stock had a trading volume of 514,304 shares, compared to its average volume of 575,969. F5 has a 52-week low of $164.45 and a 52-week high of $313.00. The stock has a market capitalization of $15.50 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.72, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.85 and a beta of 1.14. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $265.90 and a 200-day moving average of $262.01.

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

Insider Buying and Selling

In other F5 news, EVP Chad Michael Whalen sold 4,093 shares of the company's stock in a transaction on Monday, February 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $290.33, for a total transaction of $1,188,320.69. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 27,264 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,915,557.12. This represents a 13.05 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Lyra Amber Schramm sold 253 shares of F5 stock in a transaction dated Saturday, February 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $297.26, for a total transaction of $75,206.78. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 200 shares in the company, valued at approximately $59,452. The trade was a 55.85 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 17,504 shares of company stock valued at $5,088,492 over the last three months. 0.52% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of F5

Hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. Barclays PLC raised its position in F5 by 1.4% in the third quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 144,572 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $31,836,000 after acquiring an additional 2,008 shares in the last quarter. Virtu Financial LLC purchased a new position in shares of F5 in the 3rd quarter valued at about $1,531,000. Tidal Investments LLC lifted its stake in shares of F5 by 22.1% in the third quarter. Tidal Investments LLC now owns 12,825 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $2,824,000 after purchasing an additional 2,325 shares during the period. Franklin Resources Inc. boosted its holdings in F5 by 0.4% during the third quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 376,215 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $82,553,000 after buying an additional 1,554 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Retirement Systems of Alabama grew its position in F5 by 7.7% during the third quarter. Retirement Systems of Alabama now owns 377,387 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $83,101,000 after buying an additional 27,124 shares during the period. 90.66% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.