F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Reaches New 12-Month High – Time to Buy?

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV)’s stock price reached a new 52-week high during mid-day trading on Thursday . The company traded as high as $264.73 and last traded at $263.81, with a volume of 20914 shares changing hands. The stock had previously closed at $262.30.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts have commented on FFIV shares. Evercore ISI boosted their price objective on F5 from $240.00 to $270.00 and gave the stock an “in-line” rating in a research note on Friday. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their price target on shares of F5 from $212.00 to $241.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. StockNews.com raised F5 from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. Piper Sandler increased their target price on F5 from $186.00 to $246.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. Finally, Morgan Stanley upped their price target on shares of F5 from $230.00 to $262.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, December 17th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $246.00.

F5 Trading Up 0.0 %

The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $253.16 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $220.60. The firm has a market cap of $15.47 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.61, a PEG ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 1.06.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last released its earnings results on Monday, October 28th. The network technology company reported $3.67 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.45 by $0.22. F5 had a return on equity of 20.80% and a net margin of 20.13%. The firm had revenue of $747.00 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $730.43 million. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $2.76 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that F5, Inc. will post 11.01 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

F5 declared that its board has approved a share repurchase program on Monday, October 28th that authorizes the company to repurchase $1.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the network technology company to reacquire up to 7.9% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are usually a sign that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Activity at F5

In other news, CFO Francis J. Pelzer sold 600 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $217.67, for a total value of $130,602.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 29,825 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $6,492,007.75. This represents a 1.97 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, Director Alan Higginson sold 825 shares of F5 stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $239.77, for a total transaction of $197,810.25. Following the sale, the director now owns 9,882 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,369,407.14. This represents a 7.71 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.58% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of F5

Institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Quest Partners LLC lifted its stake in shares of F5 by 9,100.0% in the second quarter. Quest Partners LLC now owns 184 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $32,000 after acquiring an additional 182 shares during the period. Federated Hermes Inc. increased its position in shares of F5 by 7.1% during the second quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. now owns 5,635 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $971,000 after buying an additional 375 shares during the period. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. increased its holdings in F5 by 21.5% in the second quarter. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. now owns 5,011 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $863,000 after purchasing an additional 887 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its stake in F5 by 8.9% in the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 598,605 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $103,096,000 after acquiring an additional 48,742 shares during the period. Finally, Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV boosted its stake in F5 by 59.5% during the 2nd quarter. Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV now owns 4,258 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $733,000 after purchasing an additional 1,589 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

F5 Company Profile

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.