F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) Short Interest Up 9.4% in October

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) was the target of a significant growth in short interest during the month of October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 2,320,000 shares, a growth of 9.4% from the October 15th total of 2,120,000 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 603,700 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 3.8 days. Currently, 4.0% of the company’s stock are sold short.

Insider Transactions at F5

In other F5 news, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 1,450 shares of F5 stock in a transaction dated Thursday, October 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $218.26, for a total transaction of $316,477.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 121,122 shares in the company, valued at approximately $26,436,087.72. This trade represents a 1.18 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, Director Alan Higginson sold 1,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, September 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $201.65, for a total value of $201,650.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 10,707 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,159,066.55. The trade was a 8.54 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 4,250 shares of company stock worth $897,594. Insiders own 0.58% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On F5

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in FFIV. Pacer Advisors Inc. increased its holdings in F5 by 6,700.2% during the 2nd quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 848,388 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $146,118,000 after purchasing an additional 835,912 shares during the last quarter. Wedge Capital Management L L P NC acquired a new stake in F5 in the third quarter valued at $61,386,000. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in F5 by 1,681.1% during the 3rd quarter. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC now owns 285,639 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $62,898,000 after acquiring an additional 269,602 shares during the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in F5 by 48.9% during the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 652,972 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $111,932,000 after acquiring an additional 214,351 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Hotchkis & Wiley Capital Management LLC increased its position in shares of F5 by 3.6% in the 3rd 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 during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

F5 Stock Performance

NASDAQ:FFIV traded up $1.41 during mid-day trading on Monday, reaching $239.77. The stock had a trading volume of 228,473 shares, compared to its average volume of 534,546. The firm has a market capitalization of $13.97 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.95, a PEG ratio of 3.22 and a beta of 1.05. F5 has a twelve month low of $159.01 and a twelve month high of $250.46. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $222.72 and a 200 day simple moving average of $194.47.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last posted 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. F5 had a return on equity of 20.80% and a net margin of 20.13%. The firm had revenue of $747.00 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $730.43 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $2.76 EPS. F5’s revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that F5 will post 11.01 earnings per share for the current year.

F5 declared that its board has approved a share repurchase program 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 repurchase up to 7.9% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are generally an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

FFIV has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Morgan Stanley increased their target price on shares of F5 from $215.00 to $230.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. Evercore ISI upped their price target on F5 from $180.00 to $210.00 and gave the company an “in-line” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 30th. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their target price on F5 from $205.00 to $240.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their price target on F5 from $212.00 to $241.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on shares of F5 from $225.00 to $250.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, F5 currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $233.56.

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.