F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Given New $428.00 Price Target at Barclays

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) had its price target lifted by investment analysts at Barclays from $397.00 to $428.00 in a report released on Wednesday, Benzinga reports. The brokerage presently has an “equal weight” rating on the network technology company’s stock. Barclays‘s price target indicates a potential upside of 15.23% from the stock’s current price.

A number of other analysts have also recently weighed in on the company. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Tuesday, July 28th. Wells Fargo & Company set a $500.00 price objective on F5 in a report on Wednesday. Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on F5 from $380.00 to $415.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 28th. Zacks Research downgraded shares of F5 from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, July 27th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their target price on shares of F5 from $500.00 to $515.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 28th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $437.67.

F5 Trading Down 19.1%

Shares of FFIV stock traded down $87.93 during trading hours on Wednesday, hitting $371.43. The company had a trading volume of 1,458,926 shares, compared to its average volume of 716,006. F5 has a 12 month low of $223.76 and a 12 month high of $483.30. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $430.37 and its 200 day moving average is $361.39.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, October 27th. The network technology company reported $4.42 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $4.26 by $0.16. The company had revenue of $917.43 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $884.03 million. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 13.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $4.39 earnings per share. Equities analysts anticipate that F5 will post 13.65 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

F5 declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock buyback program on Tuesday, October 27th that authorizes the company to buy back $1.50 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the network technology company to buy shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are typically a sign that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling at F5

In other F5 news, EVP Thomas Fountain sold 1,208 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $414.63, for a total value of $500,873.04. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president directly owned 8,060 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,341,917.80. The trade was a 13.03% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 3,782 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $412.44, for a total transaction of $1,559,848.08. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 146,989 shares in the company, valued at $60,624,143.16. The trade was a 2.51% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders have sold 16,829 shares of company stock worth $6,815,302 over the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 0.48% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of F5

Several hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. iA Global Asset Management Inc. acquired a new position in F5 in the first quarter valued at about $6,469,000. Bank of America Corp DE bought a new position in F5 during the second quarter worth about $70,355,000. BlackRock Inc. acquired a new position in shares of F5 during the 2nd quarter worth about $2,611,637,000. Amundi grew its position in shares of F5 by 96.0% during the 2nd quarter. Amundi now owns 555,809 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $231,194,000 after buying an additional 272,273 shares during the period. Finally, Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of F5 by 14.6% in the 2nd quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC now owns 22,144 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $9,211,000 after acquiring an additional 2,814 shares during the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Key F5 News

Here are the key news stories impacting F5 this week:

• Positive Sentiment: F5 reported fourth-quarter revenue of $917.4 million, up 13.2% year over year and above the $884.0 million analyst consensus. Adjusted earnings of $4.42 per share also exceeded expectations of approximately $4.24–$4.26. F5 Reports Fourth Quarter Results with 23% Product Revenue Growth
• Positive Sentiment: Product revenue increased 23%, marking the ninth consecutive quarter of double-digit product growth and signaling continued demand for F5’s application and API delivery and security offerings. F5 Q4 2026 Earnings
• Positive Sentiment: F5 authorized a $1.5 billion share-repurchase program. The expanded buyback may support per-share results and indicates management believes the stock is undervalued. F5 Expands Buyback Authorization
• Positive Sentiment: Barclays and Morgan Stanley raised their F5 price targets to $428 and $448, respectively, reflecting continued analyst support following the results. Barclays Raises F5 Price Target Morgan Stanley Raises F5 Price Target
• Negative Sentiment: The primary pressure on FFIV is fiscal 2027 revenue guidance that implies some deceleration from the company’s recent growth rate. Investors appear to have treated the outlook as insufficiently strong relative to elevated expectations, outweighing the quarterly beat. F5 Fiscal 2027 Guidance

F5 Company Profile

F5, Inc (NASDAQ: FFIV) provides application delivery, security and traffic management solutions for enterprises, service providers and public-sector organizations. Its offerings are designed to help customers secure, optimize and manage applications and application programming interfaces (APIs) across data centers, private and public clouds, and edge environments.

The company’s portfolio includes BIG-IP software and appliances, NGINX application delivery and web server technologies, and F5 Distributed Cloud services.