F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Stock Rating Reaffirmed by Needham & Company LLC

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV)‘s stock had its “buy” rating restated by analysts at Needham & Company LLC in a research note issued on Tuesday, Benzinga reports. They currently have a $220.00 target price on the network technology company’s stock. Needham & Company LLC’s price target indicates a potential upside of 32.04% from the company’s current price.

FFIV has been the subject of several other reports. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed a “sector perform” rating and set a $204.00 price objective on shares of F5 in a research note on Friday, February 9th. Piper Sandler lifted their price objective on shares of F5 from $170.00 to $187.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 30th. Barclays lifted their price objective on shares of F5 from $163.00 to $206.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 30th. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their target price on F5 from $156.00 to $179.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 30th. Finally, KeyCorp lifted their target price on F5 from $186.00 to $204.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 18th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating, two have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $185.10.

F5 Stock Performance

FFIV stock opened at $166.62 on Tuesday. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $187.30 and a 200 day moving average price of $176.82. F5 has a fifty-two week low of $129.93 and a fifty-two week high of $199.49. The firm has a market cap of $9.80 billion, a PE ratio of 19.95, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.68 and a beta of 1.11.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last posted its earnings results on Monday, April 29th. The network technology company reported $2.91 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.88 by $0.03. F5 had a net margin of 17.91% and a return on equity of 21.72%. The firm had revenue of $681.00 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $685.47 million. During the same period last year, the firm posted $1.70 earnings per share. F5’s revenue for the quarter was down 3.1% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities analysts predict that F5 will post 9.59 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity at F5

In related news, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 6,400 shares of F5 stock in a transaction dated Friday, March 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $188.02, for a total value of $1,203,328.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 123,251 shares in the company, valued at $23,173,653.02. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. In other F5 news, CFO Francis J. Pelzer sold 500 shares of F5 stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $182.31, for a total value of $91,155.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 32,290 shares in the company, valued at $5,886,789.90. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 6,400 shares of F5 stock in a transaction dated Friday, March 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $188.02, for a total value of $1,203,328.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 123,251 shares in the company, valued at approximately $23,173,653.02. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 10,201 shares of company stock worth $1,908,065 over the last three months. 0.58% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On F5

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Hussman Strategic Advisors Inc. purchased a new position in F5 in the first quarter valued at about $3,981,000. BNP Paribas Financial Markets grew its stake in F5 by 28.1% in the first quarter. BNP Paribas Financial Markets now owns 89,906 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $17,045,000 after purchasing an additional 19,746 shares during the last quarter. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. grew its stake in F5 by 10.6% in the first quarter. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. now owns 84,242 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $14,602,000 after purchasing an additional 8,058 shares during the last quarter. Norden Group LLC purchased a new position in F5 in the first quarter valued at about $317,000. Finally, Van ECK Associates Corp grew its stake in shares of F5 by 6.6% during the first quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 10,362 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $1,965,000 after acquiring an additional 642 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors 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.