F5 Target of Unusually High Options Trading (NASDAQ:FFIV)

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) was the target of unusually large options trading activity on Wednesday. Stock traders acquired 2,087 call options on the stock. This is an increase of 372% compared to the average volume of 442 call options.

Insider Transactions at F5

In other F5 news, Director Alan Higginson sold 825 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $239.77, for a total value of $197,810.25. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 9,882 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,369,407.14. The trade was a 7.71 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. 0.58% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On F5

Several large investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Public Sector Pension Investment Board lifted its position in F5 by 65.6% during the second quarter. Public Sector Pension Investment Board now owns 2,219 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $382,000 after purchasing an additional 879 shares during the last quarter. AXA S.A. raised its position in F5 by 832.6% during the second quarter. AXA S.A. now owns 12,133 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $2,090,000 after purchasing an additional 10,832 shares in the last quarter. MBB Public Markets I LLC bought a new stake in F5 during the second quarter worth about $592,000. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company boosted its holdings in shares of F5 by 1.4% in the 2nd quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 45,848 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $7,896,000 after purchasing an additional 621 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Creative Planning increased its position in shares of F5 by 4.1% during the 2nd quarter. Creative Planning now owns 3,994 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $688,000 after purchasing an additional 156 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

F5 Stock Up 10.9 %

Shares of FFIV traded up $29.39 during midday trading on Wednesday, reaching $299.11. 1,133,941 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 563,179. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $256.94 and its 200 day simple moving average is $226.03. The company has a market cap of $17.53 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.31, a PEG ratio of 3.68 and a beta of 1.06. F5 has a twelve month low of $159.01 and a twelve month high of $308.00.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Monday, October 28th. The network technology company reported $3.67 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.45 by $0.22. The firm had revenue of $747.00 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $730.43 million. F5 had a return on equity of 20.80% and a net margin of 20.13%. The company’s revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $2.76 EPS. As a group, analysts predict that F5 will post 11.01 earnings per share for the current year.

F5 announced that its board has approved a stock buyback plan on Monday, October 28th that allows the company to buyback $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization allows the network technology company to repurchase up to 7.9% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are usually an indication that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts have weighed in on the company. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their price objective on F5 from $212.00 to $241.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their target price on shares of F5 from $240.00 to $260.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 3rd. StockNews.com raised shares of F5 from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Evercore ISI upped their price objective on F5 from $240.00 to $270.00 and gave the stock an “in-line” rating in a report on Friday, January 17th. Finally, Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on F5 from $262.00 to $310.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, one has assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, F5 currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $286.38.

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.