Insider Selling: F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) EVP Sells $1,188,320.69 in Stock

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) EVP Chad Michael Whalen sold 4,093 shares of F5 stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $290.33, for a total value of $1,188,320.69. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 27,264 shares in the company, valued at $7,915,557.12. The trade was a 13.05 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website.

F5 Price Performance

Shares of FFIV opened at $307.44 on Friday. F5, Inc. has a 1 year low of $159.01 and a 1 year high of $308.32. The company has a market capitalization of $17.83 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.56, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.97 and a beta of 1.06. The business has a 50-day moving average of $264.35 and a 200-day moving average of $231.30.

F5 announced that its Board of Directors has authorized a share buyback program on Monday, October 28th that allows the company to repurchase $1.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization allows the network technology company to repurchase up to 7.9% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are usually an indication that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

FFIV has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Evercore ISI lifted their price target on F5 from $240.00 to $270.00 and gave the company an “in-line” rating in a research note on Friday, January 17th. Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on F5 from $262.00 to $310.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 29th. StockNews.com raised F5 from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. Needham & Company LLC lifted their price target on F5 from $285.00 to $360.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 29th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada lifted their price target on F5 from $260.00 to $310.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 29th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating, one has issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $295.00.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On F5

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in FFIV. Wedge Capital Management L L P NC bought a new stake in F5 in the third quarter worth approximately $61,386,000. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in F5 by 1,681.1% in the third quarter. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC now owns 285,639 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $62,898,000 after purchasing an additional 269,602 shares in the last quarter. Edge Capital Group LLC bought a new stake in F5 in the fourth quarter worth approximately $59,623,000. Cookson Peirce & Co. Inc. bought a new stake in F5 in the fourth quarter worth approximately $53,212,000. Finally, Hotchkis & Wiley Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in F5 by 3.6% in the third quarter. Hotchkis & Wiley Capital Management LLC now owns 5,489,388 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $1,208,763,000 after purchasing an additional 191,020 shares in the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.