Barclays Forecasts Strong Price Appreciation for F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Stock

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) had its price target boosted by Barclays from $246.00 to $296.00 in a research report released on Wednesday,Benzinga reports. Barclays currently has an equal weight rating on the network technology company’s stock.

A number of other equities research analysts also recently commented on the stock. Evercore ISI raised their price objective on shares of F5 from $240.00 to $270.00 and gave the company an “in-line” rating in a research report on Friday, January 17th. Needham & Company LLC raised their price target on F5 from $285.00 to $360.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday. Piper Sandler upped their price objective on F5 from $186.00 to $246.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. StockNews.com raised F5 from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group upped their price target on shares of F5 from $212.00 to $241.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, one has assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $299.38.

F5 Price Performance

F5 stock opened at $300.46 on Wednesday. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $258.11 and a 200-day simple moving average of $226.55. F5 has a 12 month low of $159.01 and a 12 month high of $308.00. The stock has a market capitalization of $17.61 billion, a PE ratio of 31.43, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.68 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 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.45 by $0.22. F5 had a net margin of 20.13% and a return on equity of 20.80%. The company had revenue of $747.00 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $730.43 million. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $2.76 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that F5 will post 11.01 EPS for the current year.

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

Insider Transactions at F5

In related news, Director Alan Higginson sold 825 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $239.77, for a total value of $197,810.25. Following the sale, the director now owns 9,882 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,369,407.14. This represents a 7.71 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Corporate insiders own 0.58% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On F5

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Wedge Capital Management L L P NC acquired a new position in shares of F5 in the third quarter valued at approximately $61,386,000. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in F5 by 1,681.1% in the 3rd quarter. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC now owns 285,639 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $62,898,000 after acquiring an additional 269,602 shares during the last quarter. Hotchkis & Wiley Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in F5 by 3.6% in the 3rd quarter. Hotchkis & Wiley Capital Management LLC now owns 5,489,388 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $1,208,763,000 after acquiring an additional 191,020 shares during the last quarter. Point72 Asset Management L.P. purchased a new position in shares of F5 during the 3rd quarter worth $35,090,000. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of F5 by 8.0% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,573,995 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $345,560,000 after purchasing an additional 117,080 shares during the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.