F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Issues Q4 Earnings Guidance

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) issued an update on its fourth quarter earnings guidance on Monday morning. The company provided earnings per share (EPS) guidance of $3.38-3.50 for the period, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.33. The company issued revenue guidance of $720-740 million, compared to the consensus revenue estimate of $717.39 million. F5 also updated its FY 2024 guidance to 13.100-13.100 EPS.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

FFIV has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Evercore ISI boosted their price objective on F5 from $180.00 to $210.00 and gave the stock an in-line rating in a report on Tuesday. Needham & Company LLC upped their price target on F5 from $220.00 to $235.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Tuesday. Piper Sandler raised their price objective on F5 from $167.00 to $186.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research note on Tuesday. Royal Bank of Canada upped their target price on shares of F5 from $182.00 to $205.00 and gave the stock a sector perform rating in a research note on Tuesday. Finally, Barclays raised their price target on shares of F5 from $189.00 to $214.00 and gave the company an equal weight rating in a research report on Tuesday. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have assigned a hold rating, two have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, F5 presently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $200.89.

F5 Price Performance

Shares of FFIV traded up $18.32 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, hitting $195.91. The stock had a trading volume of 839,919 shares, compared to its average volume of 486,815. The firm has a market cap of $11.48 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.46, a PEG ratio of 2.36 and a beta of 1.08. F5 has a 52 week low of $145.45 and a 52 week high of $199.80. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $171.26 and a 200-day moving average price of $179.09.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last released its quarterly earnings data on Monday, July 29th. The network technology company reported $3.36 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.97 by $0.39. The business had revenue of $695.50 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $686.06 million. F5 had a net margin of 17.91% and a return on equity of 21.41%. F5’s revenue was down 1.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $2.46 EPS. As a group, research analysts expect that F5 will post 9.64 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other F5 news, CFO Francis J. Pelzer sold 500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, July 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $176.20, for a total value of $88,100.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 31,108 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,481,229.60. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other news, CFO Francis J. Pelzer sold 500 shares of F5 stock in a transaction dated Monday, July 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $176.20, for a total transaction of $88,100.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 31,108 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,481,229.60. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 851 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, May 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $167.53, for a total transaction of $142,568.03. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 15,504 shares in the company, valued at $2,597,385.12. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 11,766 shares of company stock valued at $1,990,890. Company insiders own 0.58% of the company’s stock.

About F5

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.