F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Stock: Insider John Anthony Maddison Sells 619 Shares

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) insider John Maddison sold 619 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $324.06, for a total value of $200,593.14. Following the sale, the insider owned 1,566 shares in the company, valued at $507,477.96. The trade was a 28.33% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan.

John Anthony Maddison also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Monday, September 14th, John Maddison sold 204 shares of F5 stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $406.24, for a total transaction of $82,872.96.

F5 Trading Down 0.3%

Shares of FFIV stock opened at $310.84 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23, a current ratio of 1.73 and a quick ratio of 1.59. F5, Inc. has a 1-year low of $223.76 and a 1-year high of $483.30. The stock has a market capitalization of $17.60 billion, a PE ratio of 24.81, a P/E/G ratio of 2.88 and a beta of 1.07. The business has a 50-day moving average of $421.67 and a 200 day moving average of $364.03.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 27th. The network technology company reported $4.42 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $4.26 by $0.16. F5 had a return on equity of 21.00% and a net margin of 21.14%. The firm had revenue of $917.43 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $884.03 million. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $4.39 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 13.2% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that F5, Inc. will post 14.19 earnings per share for the current year.

F5 declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a share buyback plan on Tuesday, October 27th that authorizes the company to buy back $1.50 billion in shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the network technology company to purchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Share buyback plans are often a sign that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts have issued reports on FFIV shares. Needham & Company LLC restated a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Tuesday, July 28th. Weiss Ratings lowered shares of F5 from a “buy (b)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a report on Tuesday. Wells Fargo & Company set a $500.00 target price on F5 in a research note on Wednesday, October 28th. Wall Street Zen raised shares of F5 from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Saturday, August 1st. Finally, Piper Sandler lowered shares of F5 from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $461.00 price target on the stock. in a research report on Wednesday, October 28th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, seven have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $443.00.

Trending Headlines about F5

Here are the key news stories impacting F5 this week:

• Positive Sentiment: F5’s board authorized a $1.5 billion share-repurchase program, which could support demand for shares. The company also recently beat quarterly earnings and revenue estimates, with revenue up 13.2% year over year.
• Neutral Sentiment: An article noted recent options-market activity in FFIV but did not specify whether trading was bullish or bearish, so its significance is unclear. Do Options Traders Know Something About F5 Stock We Don’t?
• Negative Sentiment: Seven F5 executives and insiders sold roughly $7.2 million in shares in transactions dated November 3–4, including the CFO, CTOs and EVPs. The sales could create near-term concern, though they were made under pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 plans, which can reduce their significance as a signal about executives’ views of the company. Insider Selling: F5 CFO Sells Shares

Institutional Trading of F5

Large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Bank of America Corp DE purchased a new position in F5 during the 2nd quarter valued at about $70,355,000. BlackRock Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of F5 in the second quarter worth approximately $2,611,637,000. Nykredit A S bought a new position in shares of F5 in the second quarter worth approximately $14,596,000. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC boosted its stake in F5 by 14.6% during the second quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC now owns 22,144 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $9,211,000 after acquiring an additional 2,814 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Amundi increased its stake in shares of F5 by 96.0% in the second quarter. Amundi now owns 555,809 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $231,194,000 after purchasing an additional 272,273 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

About F5

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.