F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Stock: Insider Michael Montoya Sells 1,297 Shares

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) CTO Michael Montoya sold 1,297 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $329.68, for a total value of $427,594.96. Following the sale, the chief technology officer directly owned 1,309 shares in the company, valued at $431,551.12. The trade was a 49.77% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan.

F5 Stock Down 5.5%

Shares of NASDAQ:FFIV traded down $17.98 during trading on Thursday, hitting $311.74. 1,380,704 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 751,325. F5, Inc. has a 52 week low of $223.76 and a 52 week high of $483.30. The company has a current ratio of 1.73, a quick ratio of 1.59 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23. The company has a market cap of $17.65 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.88, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.94 and a beta of 1.07. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $425.41 and a 200-day moving average price of $363.56.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last posted 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. F5 had a return on equity of 21.00% and a net margin of 21.14%. The business had revenue of $917.43 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $884.03 million. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $4.39 EPS. F5’s revenue for the quarter was up 13.2% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts forecast that F5, Inc. will post 14.19 EPS for the current fiscal year.

F5 announced that its Board of Directors has approved a share repurchase program 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 buy shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are typically an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Institutional Trading of F5

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Persistent Asset Partners Ltd acquired a new position in F5 during the second quarter valued at approximately $36,000. Bell Investment Advisors Inc bought a new position in F5 in the second quarter valued at approximately $49,000. Jacobi Capital Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of F5 during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $53,000. Elevation Wealth Partners LLC increased its position in shares of F5 by 373.1% during the 2nd quarter. Elevation Wealth Partners LLC now owns 123 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $51,000 after purchasing an additional 97 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Root Financial Partners LLC increased its position in shares of F5 by 91.4% during the 1st quarter. Root Financial Partners LLC now owns 201 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $58,000 after purchasing an additional 96 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts have recently commented on FFIV shares. Piper Sandler lowered F5 from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $461.00 price target on the stock. in a report on Wednesday, October 28th. Wells Fargo & Company set a $500.00 price objective on F5 in a report on Wednesday, October 28th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on F5 from $500.00 to $515.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 28th. Needham & Company LLC restated a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a research note on Tuesday, July 28th. Finally, Evercore restated an “outperform” rating on shares of F5 in a research note on Wednesday, October 28th. Four equities 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 company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $443.00.

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.