F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Stock Price Expected to Rise, Barclays Analyst Says

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) had its price objective hoisted by equities researchers at Barclays from $397.00 to $428.00 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 15.23% from the company’s previous close.

Other research analysts also recently issued research reports about the stock. Morgan Stanley lifted their target price on shares of F5 from $380.00 to $415.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 28th. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Tuesday, July 28th. Zacks Research cut shares of F5 from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Monday, July 27th. Evercore reaffirmed an “outperform” rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Wednesday. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company set a $500.00 price target on F5 in a research report on Wednesday. Four analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, F5 has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $437.67.

F5 Stock Down 19.1%

FFIV traded down $87.93 on Wednesday, hitting $371.43. The company had a trading volume of 1,458,926 shares, compared to its average volume of 716,006. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $430.37 and its 200 day moving average price is $361.39. F5 has a 1-year low of $223.76 and a 1-year high of $483.30.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, October 27th. The network technology company reported $4.42 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $4.26 by $0.16. The company had revenue of $917.43 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $884.03 million. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $4.39 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 13.2% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts forecast that F5 will post 13.65 EPS for the current year.

F5 declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock repurchase plan on Tuesday, October 27th that permits the company to buy back $1.50 billion in shares. This buyback authorization permits the network technology company to purchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are typically an indication that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Transactions at F5

In other news, Director Nikhil Mehta sold 4,000 shares of F5 stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, July 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $388.95, for a total transaction of $1,555,800.00. Following the sale, the director owned 7,043 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,739,374.85. This trade represents a 36.22% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 3,782 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $412.44, for a total value of $1,559,848.08. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 146,989 shares in the company, valued at approximately $60,624,143.16. This represents a 2.51% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 16,829 shares of company stock worth $6,815,302. 0.48% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. BlackRock Inc. acquired a new stake in F5 during the second quarter worth $2,611,637,000. William Blair Investment Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of F5 in the 2nd quarter valued at $243,865,000. Hsbc Holdings PLC acquired a new position in shares of F5 in the 2nd quarter valued at $208,277,000. Legal & General Group Plc bought a new position in shares of F5 during the 2nd quarter worth about $205,453,000. Finally, Deutsche Bank AG bought a new position in shares of F5 during the 2nd quarter worth about $172,297,000. 90.66% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

More F5 News

Here are the key news stories impacting F5 this week:

• Positive Sentiment: F5 reported fourth-quarter revenue of $917.4 million, up 13.2% year over year and above the $884.0 million analyst consensus. Adjusted earnings of $4.42 per share also exceeded expectations of approximately $4.24–$4.26. F5 Reports Fourth Quarter Results with 23% Product Revenue Growth
• Positive Sentiment: Product revenue increased 23%, marking the ninth consecutive quarter of double-digit product growth and signaling continued demand for F5’s application and API delivery and security offerings. F5 Q4 2026 Earnings
• Positive Sentiment: F5 authorized a $1.5 billion share-repurchase program. The expanded buyback may support per-share results and indicates management believes the stock is undervalued. F5 Expands Buyback Authorization
• Positive Sentiment: Barclays and Morgan Stanley raised their F5 price targets to $428 and $448, respectively, reflecting continued analyst support following the results. Barclays Raises F5 Price Target Morgan Stanley Raises F5 Price Target
• Negative Sentiment: The primary pressure on FFIV is fiscal 2027 revenue guidance that implies some deceleration from the company’s recent growth rate. Investors appear to have treated the outlook as insufficiently strong relative to elevated expectations, outweighing the quarterly beat. F5 Fiscal 2027 Guidance

About F5

F5, Inc (NASDAQ: FFIV) provides application delivery, security and traffic management solutions for enterprises, service providers and public-sector organizations. Its offerings are designed to help customers secure, optimize and manage applications and application programming interfaces (APIs) across data centers, private and public clouds, and edge environments.

The company’s portfolio includes BIG-IP software and appliances, NGINX application delivery and web server technologies, and F5 Distributed Cloud services.