F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Cut to Buy at Wall Street Zen

Wall Street Zen downgraded shares of F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) from a strong-buy rating to a buy rating in a research report released on Friday morning.

Several other research firms have also recently weighed in on FFIV. Wolfe Research initiated coverage on F5 in a research report on Monday, July 7th. They set an “outperform” rating on the stock. Needham & Company LLC increased their target price on F5 from $320.00 to $345.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, July 31st. Morgan Stanley upped their price objective on shares of F5 from $305.00 to $312.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 31st. Barclays increased their price objective on shares of F5 from $274.00 to $321.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 31st. Finally, Piper Sandler boosted their target price on shares of F5 from $304.00 to $355.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 31st. Four analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, seven have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, F5 has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $309.89.

F5 Stock Performance

F5 stock opened at $324.98 on Friday. F5 has a 52 week low of $213.24 and a 52 week high of $337.39. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $319.17 and a 200 day simple moving average of $293.52. The stock has a market capitalization of $18.67 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.63, a PEG ratio of 3.57 and a beta of 1.06.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 30th. The network technology company reported $4.16 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.49 by $0.67. F5 had a return on equity of 21.77% and a net margin of 22.06%.The business had revenue of $780.37 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $750.64 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $3.36 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 12.2% on a year-over-year basis. F5 has set its FY 2025 guidance at 15.240-15.380 EPS. Q4 2025 guidance at 3.870-3.990 EPS. Research analysts forecast that F5 will post 11.2 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other F5 news, insider Lyra Amber Schramm sold 2,701 shares of F5 stock in a transaction dated Monday, September 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $316.57, for a total transaction of $855,055.57. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, EVP Chad Michael Whalen sold 5,297 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $322.24, for a total value of $1,706,905.28. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 23,591 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,601,963.84. The trade was a 18.34% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 11,945 shares of company stock valued at $3,796,542 in the last quarter. 0.52% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Aaron Wealth Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of F5 by 215.3% during the third quarter. Aaron Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 4,698 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $1,518,000 after buying an additional 3,208 shares during the period. GAMMA Investing LLC boosted its position in F5 by 12.2% during the third quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 3,345 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $1,081,000 after acquiring an additional 364 shares during the last quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC grew its holdings in F5 by 84.0% during the 2nd quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC now owns 7,483 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $2,202,000 after acquiring an additional 3,416 shares during the period. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans grew its holdings in F5 by 5.1% during the 2nd quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans now owns 22,249 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $6,548,000 after acquiring an additional 1,086 shares during the period. Finally, Neuberger Berman Group LLC raised its position in shares of F5 by 60.4% in the 2nd quarter. Neuberger Berman Group LLC now owns 18,360 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $5,404,000 after acquiring an additional 6,914 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

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.