Insider Selling: F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) Director Sells 728 Shares of Stock

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) Director Marianne Budnik sold 728 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $304.45, for a total transaction of $221,639.60. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 1,770 shares in the company, valued at $538,876.50. This represents a 29.14 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link.

F5 Price Performance

FFIV traded down $4.22 during trading hours on Friday, reaching $297.26. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 681,633 shares, compared to its average volume of 657,747. F5, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $159.01 and a fifty-two week high of $308.00. The stock has a market cap of $17.24 billion, a PE ratio of 29.55, a P/E/G ratio of 4.06 and a beta of 1.06. The business’s 50-day moving average is $259.25 and its 200-day moving average is $227.07.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last announced its earnings results on Monday, October 28th. The network technology company reported $3.67 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.45 by $0.22. The company had revenue of $747.00 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $730.43 million. F5 had a return on equity of 21.34% and a net margin of 20.58%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $2.76 earnings per share. Analysts expect that F5, Inc. will post 11.01 EPS for the current year.

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

Institutional Trading of F5

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Tokio Marine Asset Management Co. Ltd. raised its position in F5 by 2.8% in the fourth quarter. Tokio Marine Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 1,607 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $404,000 after purchasing an additional 44 shares during the period. Empirical Finance LLC raised its position in F5 by 2.3% in the third quarter. Empirical Finance LLC now owns 2,049 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $451,000 after purchasing an additional 46 shares during the period. Captrust Financial Advisors raised its position in F5 by 2.0% in the third quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 2,598 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $572,000 after purchasing an additional 50 shares during the period. First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. raised its position in F5 by 2.9% in the third quarter. First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. now owns 2,030 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $447,000 after purchasing an additional 58 shares during the period. Finally, Greenleaf Trust increased its position in shares of F5 by 5.7% during the fourth quarter. Greenleaf Trust now owns 1,091 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $274,000 after acquiring an additional 59 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have commented on FFIV. Royal Bank of Canada increased their price objective on shares of F5 from $260.00 to $310.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a report on Wednesday. Bank of America increased their price objective on shares of F5 from $180.00 to $260.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a report on Friday. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their price objective on shares of F5 from $257.00 to $295.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday. Piper Sandler increased their price objective on shares of F5 from $246.00 to $304.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday. Finally, Barclays increased their price objective on shares of F5 from $246.00 to $296.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Wednesday. One equities 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 company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $295.00.

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.