F5’s (FFIV) “Sector Perform” Rating Reaffirmed at Royal Bank of Canada

Royal Bank of Canada reiterated their sector perform rating on shares of F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) in a research note published on Tuesday morning,Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has a $290.00 price target on the network technology company’s stock.

A number of other research firms have also recently commented on FFIV. Bank of America raised their price target on shares of F5 from $180.00 to $260.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Evercore ISI boosted their target price on F5 from $240.00 to $270.00 and gave the company an “in-line” rating in a research report on Friday, January 17th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their price target on F5 from $296.00 to $285.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, April 17th. Barclays reduced their price objective on F5 from $296.00 to $274.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday. Finally, Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $320.00 target price on shares of F5 in a report on Tuesday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $282.56.

F5 Stock Up 0.4 %

Shares of NASDAQ FFIV opened at $265.77 on Tuesday. The company has a market capitalization of $15.32 billion, a PE ratio of 26.42, a P/E/G 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. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $266.38 and a 200 day simple moving average of $261.65.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last issued its earnings results on Monday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.42 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.11 by $0.31. F5 had a return on equity of 20.98% and a net margin of 20.58%. The business had revenue of $590.16 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $719.91 million. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $2.91 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.3% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts expect that F5 will post 11.2 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at F5

In other F5 news, Director Marianne Budnik sold 1,872 shares of F5 stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, March 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $260.72, for a total transaction of $488,067.84. Following the transaction, the director now owns 1,207 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $314,689.04. This trade represents a 60.80 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 6,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 12th. The shares were 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 approximately $45,836,915.82. This represents a 4.12 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 17,504 shares of company stock worth $5,088,492. Corporate insiders own 0.52% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Golden State Wealth Management LLC raised its stake in shares of F5 by 275.0% during the 1st quarter. Golden State Wealth Management LLC now owns 105 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $28,000 after purchasing an additional 77 shares during the period. Park Square Financial Group LLC bought a new stake in F5 in the fourth quarter worth about $31,000. Crowley Wealth Management Inc. purchased a new position in F5 in the fourth quarter valued at about $35,000. Hurley Capital LLC purchased a new stake in shares of F5 during the 4th quarter worth approximately $43,000. Finally, Friedenthal Financial purchased a new stake in shares of F5 during the 4th quarter worth approximately $50,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

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.