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

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) was the recipient of unusually large options trading on Wednesday. Traders acquired 2,087 call options on the stock. This represents an increase of approximately 372% compared to the average volume of 442 call options.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, Director Alan Higginson sold 825 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $239.77, for a total transaction of $197,810.25. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 9,882 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,369,407.14. This trade represents a 7.71 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Company insiders own 0.58% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of F5

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in FFIV. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC bought a new position in F5 during the 3rd quarter worth $28,000. Kathleen S. Wright Associates Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of F5 in the third quarter valued at about $32,000. Friedenthal Financial bought a new position in shares of F5 during the fourth quarter worth about $50,000. Brown Financial Advisors acquired a new position in shares of F5 in the second quarter worth approximately $66,000. Finally, Venturi Wealth Management LLC boosted its holdings in F5 by 79.8% in the third quarter. Venturi Wealth Management LLC now owns 320 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $70,000 after acquiring an additional 142 shares during the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

F5 Trading Down 1.4 %

F5 stock traded down $4.22 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $297.26. The company had a trading volume of 681,633 shares, compared to its average volume of 657,747. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $259.25 and a 200 day simple moving average of $227.07. The company has a market cap of $17.24 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.55, a P/E/G ratio of 4.06 and a beta of 1.06. F5 has a fifty-two week low of $159.01 and a fifty-two week high of $308.00.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last released its quarterly earnings data on Monday, October 28th. The network technology company reported $3.67 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.45 by $0.22. F5 had a return on equity of 21.34% and a net margin of 20.58%. The company had revenue of $747.00 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $730.43 million. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $2.76 EPS. F5’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts forecast that F5 will post 11.01 EPS for the current year.

F5 announced that its Board of Directors has approved a share buyback plan on Monday, October 28th that permits the company to buyback $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization permits the network technology company to repurchase up to 7.9% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are typically a sign that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages recently issued reports on FFIV. Needham & Company LLC boosted their price target on F5 from $285.00 to $360.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Piper Sandler increased their target price on F5 from $246.00 to $304.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price objective on shares of F5 from $225.00 to $250.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. Morgan Stanley raised their target price on shares of F5 from $262.00 to $310.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Wednesday. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada upped their price target on shares of F5 from $260.00 to $310.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a report on Wednesday. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have issued a hold rating, one has issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $295.00.

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.