F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Downgraded to “Buy” Rating by StockNews.com

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) was downgraded by StockNews.com from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday.

A number of other research firms also recently weighed in on FFIV. Barclays decreased their target price on F5 from $296.00 to $274.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed a “sector perform” rating and issued a $290.00 target price on shares of F5 in a research report on Tuesday. Bank of America boosted their price target on shares of F5 from $180.00 to $260.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their target price on shares of F5 from $257.00 to $295.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 29th. Finally, Evercore ISI raised their price target on shares of F5 from $240.00 to $270.00 and gave the stock an “in-line” rating in a research note on Friday, January 17th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, F5 currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $282.56.

F5 Stock Up 0.4 %

Shares of NASDAQ:FFIV opened at $265.77 on Wednesday. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $266.38 and a 200 day moving average price of $261.65. The company has a market cap of $15.32 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.42, a PEG ratio of 3.85 and a beta of 1.14. F5 has a twelve month low of $163.12 and a twelve month high of $313.00.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Monday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.42 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.11 by $0.31. F5 had a net margin of 20.58% and a return on equity of 20.98%. The business had revenue of $590.16 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $719.91 million. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $2.91 earnings per share. F5’s quarterly revenue was up 7.3% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts anticipate that F5 will post 11.2 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at F5

In related news, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 6,500 shares of F5 stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $303.06, for a total value of $1,969,890.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 151,247 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $45,836,915.82. The trade was a 4.12 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Lyra Amber Schramm sold 253 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Saturday, February 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $297.26, for a total transaction of $75,206.78. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 200 shares in the company, valued at approximately $59,452. This represents a 55.85 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 17,504 shares of company stock worth $5,088,492. 0.52% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On F5

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in FFIV. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in F5 by 0.9% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 7,544,256 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $1,897,154,000 after purchasing an additional 64,261 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of F5 by 1.9% in the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,604,362 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $402,536,000 after purchasing an additional 30,367 shares during the last quarter. First Trust Advisors LP raised its stake in shares of F5 by 3.1% during the fourth quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 1,259,848 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $316,814,000 after buying an additional 37,354 shares during the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp lifted its holdings in F5 by 38.0% in the fourth quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 913,021 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $229,597,000 after buying an additional 251,534 shares during the period. Finally, GAMMA Investing LLC boosted its stake in F5 by 34,698.9% in the first quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 746,089 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $198,661,000 after acquiring an additional 743,945 shares during the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.