F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Price Target Raised to $296.00 at Barclays

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) had its price target raised by research analysts at Barclays from $246.00 to $296.00 in a research report issued on Wednesday,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has an “equal weight” rating on the network technology company’s stock. Barclays‘s price target indicates a potential upside of 9.74% from the company’s previous close.

FFIV has been the subject of a number of other research reports. Piper Sandler boosted their price objective on F5 from $186.00 to $246.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. StockNews.com raised F5 from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their target price on F5 from $240.00 to $260.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a report on Friday, January 3rd. The Goldman Sachs Group upped their price target on shares of F5 from $212.00 to $241.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. Finally, Evercore ISI lifted their price objective on shares of F5 from $240.00 to $270.00 and gave the stock an “in-line” rating in a research note on Friday, January 17th. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, one has given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, F5 presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $279.13.

F5 Stock Up 2.6 %

FFIV stock opened at $269.72 on Wednesday. F5 has a twelve month low of $159.01 and a twelve month high of $274.64. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $256.94 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $226.03. The company has a market cap of $15.81 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.21, a P/E/G ratio of 3.68 and a beta of 1.06.

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 analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.45 by $0.22. F5 had a return on equity of 20.80% and a net margin of 20.13%. The firm had revenue of $747.00 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $730.43 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $2.76 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that F5 will post 11.01 EPS for the current fiscal year.

F5 announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a share repurchase program on Monday, October 28th that permits the company to buyback $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization permits the network technology company to purchase up to 7.9% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are typically a sign that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling at F5

In other F5 news, Director Alan Higginson sold 825 shares of F5 stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $239.77, for a total value of $197,810.25. Following the transaction, the director now owns 9,882 shares in the company, valued at $2,369,407.14. The trade was a 7.71 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Insiders own 0.58% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On F5

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in FFIV. Public Sector Pension Investment Board increased its holdings in F5 by 65.6% in the 2nd quarter. Public Sector Pension Investment Board now owns 2,219 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $382,000 after purchasing an additional 879 shares in the last quarter. MBB Public Markets I LLC acquired a new position in F5 in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $592,000. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company raised its stake in shares of F5 by 1.4% during the second quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 45,848 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $7,896,000 after acquiring an additional 621 shares during the last quarter. Creative Planning increased its holdings in F5 by 4.1% in the second quarter. Creative Planning now owns 3,994 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $688,000 after purchasing an additional 156 shares during the period. Finally, Brown Financial Advisors acquired a new position in F5 during the 2nd quarter worth about $66,000. 90.66% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

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.