F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) Short Interest Down 23.9% in January

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) saw a large drop in short interest in the month of January. As of January 30th, there was short interest totaling 2,312,144 shares, a drop of 23.9% from the January 15th total of 3,037,580 shares. Approximately 4.1% of the company’s stock are short sold. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 1,438,938 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 1.6 days. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 1,438,938 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 1.6 days. Approximately 4.1% of the company’s stock are short sold.

Insider Activity

In other F5 news, Director Alan Higginson sold 1,309 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, December 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $237.11, for a total value of $310,376.99. Following the transaction, the director owned 8,610 shares in the company, valued at $2,041,517.10. The trade was a 13.20% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 1,300 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $236.99, for a total value of $308,087.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 150,323 shares in the company, valued at approximately $35,625,047.77. The trade was a 0.86% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold a total of 20,301 shares of company stock worth $5,204,053 in the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 0.48% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of F5

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in shares of F5 by 1.6% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 7,357,293 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $1,878,023,000 after buying an additional 114,533 shares during the period. State Street Corp raised its holdings in F5 by 1.7% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 3,226,326 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $1,042,716,000 after acquiring an additional 53,712 shares in the last quarter. First Trust Advisors LP lifted its position in shares of F5 by 68.5% in the 4th quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 2,753,652 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $702,897,000 after acquiring an additional 1,119,291 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of F5 by 3.8% during the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,741,117 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $511,016,000 after purchasing an additional 64,420 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. increased its position in shares of F5 by 15,103.5% during the fourth quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. now owns 1,170,216 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $298,709,000 after purchasing an additional 1,162,519 shares during the period. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

F5 Stock Performance

Shares of F5 stock traded up $11.91 during trading on Monday, reaching $273.93. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 586,474 shares, compared to its average volume of 949,218. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $266.74 and its 200-day moving average price is $284.98. F5 has a one year low of $223.76 and a one year high of $346.00. The firm has a market cap of $15.48 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.66, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 7.76 and a beta of 1.00.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, January 27th. The network technology company reported $4.45 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.63 by $0.82. F5 had a return on equity of 22.08% and a net margin of 22.45%.The firm had revenue of $822.47 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $755.97 million. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $3.84 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 7.3% on a year-over-year basis. F5 has set its Q2 2026 guidance at 3.340-3.460 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 15.650-16.050 EPS. Sell-side analysts anticipate that F5 will post 11.2 EPS for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts have issued reports on the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded shares of F5 from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and lifted their target price for the company from $295.00 to $345.00 in a research note on Thursday, January 15th. Royal Bank Of Canada lifted their price objective on shares of F5 from $325.00 to $345.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 28th. Wall Street Zen downgraded shares of F5 from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, November 28th. Zacks Research upgraded F5 from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, January 9th. Finally, Evercore reiterated a “cautious” rating on shares of F5 in a research note on Tuesday, October 28th. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have given a Hold rating and two have given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $309.89.

About F5

F5 Inc (NASDAQ:FFIV) specializes in application services and delivery networking, helping organizations ensure the availability, performance and security of their applications. The company’s core offerings include advanced load balancing, traffic management and application security solutions designed to optimize user experiences and protect against threats such as distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and web application exploits.

At the heart of F5’s product portfolio is the BIG-IP platform, which provides a suite of software modules for local and global traffic management, secure web application firewalling and DNS service delivery.