F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) Director Alan Higginson Sells 825 Shares

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) Director Alan Higginson sold 825 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $239.77, for a total transaction of $197,810.25. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 9,882 shares in the company, valued at $2,369,407.14. This trade represents a 7.71 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website.

Alan Higginson also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Monday, September 9th, Alan Higginson sold 1,000 shares of F5 stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $201.65, for a total transaction of $201,650.00.

F5 Price Performance

F5 stock opened at $246.98 on Friday. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $226.58 and its 200-day moving average price is $196.71. F5, Inc. has a 1 year low of $159.01 and a 1 year high of $250.46. The stock has a market cap of $14.48 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.83, a PEG ratio of 3.24 and a beta of 1.05.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Monday, October 28th. The network technology company reported $3.67 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.45 by $0.22. F5 had a net margin of 20.13% and a return on equity of 20.80%. The company had revenue of $747.00 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $730.43 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $2.76 earnings per share. F5’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts expect that F5, Inc. will post 11.01 EPS for the current year.

F5 declared that its board has approved a stock repurchase program on Monday, October 28th that permits the company to buyback $1.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization permits the network technology company to repurchase up to 7.9% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are typically a sign that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Evercore ISI raised their price target on shares of F5 from $180.00 to $210.00 and gave the company an “in-line” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 30th. Royal Bank of Canada raised their price objective on shares of F5 from $205.00 to $240.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on shares of F5 from $215.00 to $230.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. StockNews.com raised shares of F5 from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on shares of F5 from $225.00 to $250.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $233.56.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of FFIV. Bessemer Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of F5 by 424.1% during the first quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. now owns 7,604 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $1,442,000 after purchasing an additional 6,153 shares during the period. Chase Investment Counsel Corp purchased a new stake in shares of F5 during the third quarter valued at $4,726,000. Bank of Montreal Can boosted its stake in shares of F5 by 3.9% during the second quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 308,159 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $53,247,000 after purchasing an additional 11,525 shares during the period. Janus Henderson Group PLC boosted its stake in shares of F5 by 195.1% during the first quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC now owns 21,994 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $4,170,000 after purchasing an additional 14,541 shares during the period. Finally, Dai ichi Life Insurance Company Ltd boosted its stake in shares of F5 by 10.5% during the second quarter. Dai ichi Life Insurance Company Ltd now owns 28,820 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $4,964,000 after purchasing an additional 2,730 shares during the period. 90.66% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.