Shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV – Get Free Report) gapped down before the market opened on Wednesday. The stock had previously closed at $459.36, but opened at $421.31. F5 shares last traded at $365.5060, with a volume of 1,875,145 shares trading hands.
F5 News Summary
Here are the key news stories impacting F5 this week:
- Positive Sentiment: F5 authorized an additional $1.5 billion share repurchase program, bringing total available buyback capacity to approximately $1.8 billion, or about 9% of its market value. The authorization could support earnings per share and provide demand for the stock following its sell-off. Share Buyback Program Announced by F5
- Positive Sentiment: F5 reported fiscal fourth-quarter revenue of approximately $917 million and adjusted earnings of $4.42 per share, exceeding analyst expectations. AI-related bookings surpassed $100 million and increased roughly 300% year over year, indicating continued demand for AI data-delivery solutions. F5 Beat on Revenue and Still Dropped
- Positive Sentiment: Technical analysts say the stock is now oversold after its recent decline, while upward earnings-estimate revisions could support a potential trend reversal. Morgan Stanley, Barclays and RBC also raised their price targets or maintained a constructive outlook. F5 May See a Trend Reversal
- Positive Sentiment: F5 and Oracle announced a collaboration focused on strengthening application security for AI-era workloads, potentially improving F5’s enterprise and cloud-security opportunities. F5 and Oracle Collaborate
Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades
Several brokerages recently weighed in on FFIV. Wells Fargo & Company set a $500.00 price objective on shares of F5 in a research note on Wednesday. Zacks Research downgraded F5 from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Monday, July 27th. Wall Street Zen upgraded F5 from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday, August 1st. Royal Bank Of Canada upped their price target on F5 from $525.00 to $540.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday. Finally, Weiss Ratings raised F5 from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “buy (b)” rating in a research note on Friday, October 9th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, seven have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, F5 has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $443.00.
Get Our Latest Stock Analysis on FFIV
F5 Stock Performance
The company has a 50-day moving average price of $429.42 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $362.35. The company has a current ratio of 1.73, a quick ratio of 1.59 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23. The stock has a market capitalization of $19.16 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.00, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.46 and a beta of 1.03.
F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV – Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, October 27th. The network technology company reported $4.42 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $4.26 by $0.16. F5 had a return on equity of 21.00% and a net margin of 21.14%. The company had revenue of $917.43 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $884.03 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $4.39 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 13.2% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities analysts forecast that F5, Inc. will post 14.07 earnings per share for the current year.
F5 declared that its board has authorized a share buyback plan on Tuesday, October 27th that authorizes the company to buy back $1.50 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the network technology company to purchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are typically a sign that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.
Insider Buying and Selling
In related news, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 3,782 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $412.44, for a total value of $1,559,848.08. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 146,989 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $60,624,143.16. This represents a 2.51% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CTO Michael F. Montoya sold 4,426 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, September 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $410.16, for a total value of $1,815,368.16. Following the transaction, the chief technology officer owned 1,309 shares in the company, valued at approximately $536,899.44. This trade represents a 77.18% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Over the last ninety days, insiders have sold 12,829 shares of company stock valued at $5,259,502. 0.48% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.
Institutional Inflows and Outflows
A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. AIA Group Ltd boosted its position in F5 by 4.9% in the third quarter. AIA Group Ltd now owns 17,100 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $7,613,000 after purchasing an additional 800 shares during the last quarter. Provenance Wealth Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of F5 by 10,050.0% during the 3rd quarter. Provenance Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 203 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $90,000 after purchasing an additional 201 shares during the last quarter. Aware Super Pty Ltd as trustee of Aware Super increased its position in shares of F5 by 450.1% during the 3rd quarter. Aware Super Pty Ltd as trustee of Aware Super now owns 42,807 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $19,057,000 after purchasing an additional 35,025 shares during the last quarter. GraniteShares Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of F5 by 5.8% during the 3rd quarter. GraniteShares Advisors LLC now owns 1,021 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $455,000 after purchasing an additional 56 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Welch Group LLC bought a new stake in shares of F5 during the 3rd quarter worth $244,000. 90.66% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.
F5 Company Profile
F5, Inc (NASDAQ: FFIV) provides application delivery, security and traffic management solutions for enterprises, service providers and public-sector organizations. Its offerings are designed to help customers secure, optimize and manage applications and application programming interfaces (APIs) across data centers, private and public clouds, and edge environments.
The company’s portfolio includes BIG-IP software and appliances, NGINX application delivery and web server technologies, and F5 Distributed Cloud services.
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