F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) Given Consensus Recommendation of “Hold” by Brokerages

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) has received an average rating of “Hold” from the eleven brokerages that are presently covering the company, Marketbeat.com reports. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, five have issued a hold recommendation and five have issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average twelve-month price objective among brokers that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $416.6250.

A number of equities research analysts have commented on the stock. Bank of America raised their price target on shares of F5 from $250.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, May 26th. Morgan Stanley increased their price objective on shares of F5 from $380.00 to $415.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 28th. Royal Bank Of Canada restated an “outperform” rating on shares of F5 in a research note on Thursday, July 16th. Evercore raised F5 from an “in-line” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $475.00 target price for the company in a research report on Monday, May 18th. Finally, Piper Sandler reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and set a $461.00 price target (up from $423.00) on shares of F5 in a research note on Tuesday, July 28th.

Insider Activity

In other news, insider John Anthony Maddison sold 1,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $405.85, for a total transaction of $405,850.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 1,353 shares in the company, valued at $549,115.05. The trade was a 42.50% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, EVP Angelique M. Okeke sold 515 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, August 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $404.49, for a total value of $208,312.35. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president owned 2,240 shares in the company, valued at approximately $906,057.60. This represents a 18.69% 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. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 15,699 shares of company stock valued at $6,316,411. Corporate insiders own 0.48% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in FFIV. Norges Bank purchased a new position in shares of F5 during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $205,706,000. Jefferies Financial Group Inc. raised its position in F5 by 127.0% in the 4th quarter. Jefferies Financial Group Inc. now owns 34,529 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $8,814,000 after buying an additional 19,315 shares during the last quarter. iA Global Asset Management Inc. purchased a new stake in F5 in the 1st quarter valued at $6,469,000. William Blair Investment Management LLC bought a new position in F5 during the 4th quarter valued at $140,460,000. Finally, Tredje AP fonden lifted its stake in F5 by 98.2% during the 4th quarter. Tredje AP fonden now owns 7,683 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $1,961,000 after acquiring an additional 3,807 shares in the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Key Headlines Impacting F5

Here are the key news stories impacting F5 this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Zacks raised earnings estimates across multiple periods. The firm increased its FY2026 EPS forecast to $13.59 from $12.80, FY2027 to $13.77 from $13.02, and FY2028 to $16.16 from $13.48. It also lifted estimates for several individual quarters, including Q4 2026, Q1 and Q3 2027, and Q1 through Q3 2028. The revisions indicate improving expectations for F5’s profitability and are above the current-year consensus estimate of $13.53. Zacks Research Forecasts F5’s Q2 Earnings
• Neutral Sentiment: The estimate increases are concentrated in future periods. Although Zacks raised its Q2 2028 EPS forecast to $3.79 from $3.22 and its Q3 2028 forecast to $4.17 from $3.46, these revisions may have less impact on near-term trading than changes to current-quarter guidance or results.
• Negative Sentiment: Zacks maintained a Hold rating. The lack of an upgrade may temper investor enthusiasm, particularly after F5’s strong run toward its 52-week high. At a valuation of roughly 32 times earnings, investors may be looking for stronger near-term catalysts before assigning the stock a higher multiple.

F5 Stock Performance

F5 stock opened at $403.20 on Monday. The stock has a market capitalization of $22.83 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.10, a PEG ratio of 3.94 and a beta of 1.03. F5 has a 52-week low of $223.76 and a 52-week high of $435.00. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $404.59 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $344.58.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last released its quarterly earnings data on Monday, July 27th. The network technology company reported $4.73 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $4.00 by $0.73. F5 had a net margin of 21.95% and a return on equity of 21.54%. The company had revenue of $865.08 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $834.60 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $4.16 EPS. F5’s revenue for the quarter was up 10.9% compared to the same quarter last year. F5 has set its Q4 2026 guidance at 4.140-4.260 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 17.210-17.330 EPS. On average, equities research analysts forecast that F5 will post 13.65 EPS for the current year.

F5 Company Profile

F5 Inc (NASDAQ:FFIV) specializes in application services and delivery networking, helping organizations ensure the availability, performance and security of their applications. The company’s core offerings include advanced load balancing, traffic management and application security solutions designed to optimize user experiences and protect against threats such as distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and web application exploits.

At the heart of F5’s product portfolio is the BIG-IP platform, which provides a suite of software modules for local and global traffic management, secure web application firewalling and DNS service delivery.