Short Interest in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) Declines By 6.0%

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) was the recipient of a large decrease in short interest during the month of March. As of March 31st, there was short interest totalling 1,710,000 shares, a decrease of 6.0% from the March 15th total of 1,820,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 445,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 3.8 days. Approximately 2.9% of the shares of the company are short sold.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CFO Francis J. Pelzer sold 500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, March 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $189.12, for a total value of $94,560.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 31,790 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $6,012,124.80. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. In other news, CFO Francis J. Pelzer sold 500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, March 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $189.12, for a total value of $94,560.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 31,790 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $6,012,124.80. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 851 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $183.06, for a total transaction of $155,784.06. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 15,008 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,747,364.48. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 10,201 shares of company stock worth $1,908,705. Insiders own 0.58% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On F5

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of FFIV. Millennium Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of F5 by 582.2% in the 4th quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 643,449 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $92,341,000 after purchasing an additional 549,127 shares during the period. Acadian Asset Management LLC raised its holdings in F5 by 203.5% in the 3rd quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 484,516 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $78,052,000 after acquiring an additional 324,886 shares during the period. Lyrical Asset Management LP raised its holdings in F5 by 38.3% in the 4th quarter. Lyrical Asset Management LP now owns 1,145,302 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $204,986,000 after acquiring an additional 317,263 shares during the period. Norges Bank bought a new position in F5 in the 4th quarter valued at about $45,937,000. Finally, Ameriprise Financial Inc. raised its holdings in F5 by 13.3% in the 3rd quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 1,812,095 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $292,001,000 after acquiring an additional 212,784 shares during the period. 90.66% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

F5 Stock Performance

Shares of FFIV stock opened at $181.30 on Thursday. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $188.23 and its 200-day moving average is $175.27. The stock has a market cap of $10.66 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.58, a PEG ratio of 2.71 and a beta of 1.11. F5 has a 52-week low of $127.05 and a 52-week high of $199.49.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last issued its earnings results on Monday, January 29th. The network technology company reported $3.43 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.04 by $0.39. The company had revenue of $693.00 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $684.77 million. F5 had a net margin of 16.43% and a return on equity of 20.81%. F5’s quarterly revenue was down 1.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $1.65 EPS. Sell-side analysts predict that F5 will post 9.58 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

FFIV has been the subject of several recent research reports. KeyCorp increased their target price on shares of F5 from $186.00 to $204.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 18th. Royal Bank of Canada restated a “sector perform” rating and issued a $204.00 price target on shares of F5 in a research report on Friday, February 9th. Needham & Company LLC restated a “buy” rating and issued a $220.00 price target on shares of F5 in a research report on Tuesday, February 13th. The Goldman Sachs Group upped their price target on shares of F5 from $156.00 to $179.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 30th. Finally, Barclays upped their price target on shares of F5 from $163.00 to $206.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 30th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have issued a hold rating, three have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $186.82.

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.