F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Stock: Insider John Anthony Maddison Sells 619 Shares

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) insider John Maddison sold 619 shares of F5 stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $324.06, for a total value of $200,593.14. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 1,566 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $507,477.96. This trade represents a 28.33% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan.

John Anthony Maddison also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Monday, September 14th, John Maddison sold 204 shares of F5 stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $406.24, for a total transaction of $82,872.96.

F5 Price Performance

F5 stock traded down $17.98 during mid-day trading on Thursday, hitting $311.74. 1,380,704 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 751,325. F5, Inc. has a 12-month low of $223.76 and a 12-month high of $483.30. The company has a market capitalization of $17.65 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.88, a PEG ratio of 2.94 and a beta of 1.07. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $425.41 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $363.56. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23, a current ratio of 1.73 and a quick ratio of 1.59.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 27th. The network technology company reported $4.42 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $4.26 by $0.16. F5 had a return on equity of 21.00% and a net margin of 21.14%. The company had revenue of $917.43 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $884.03 million. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $4.39 EPS. F5’s revenue was up 13.2% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts forecast that F5, Inc. will post 14.19 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

F5 declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock buyback program 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 repurchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are usually an indication that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Trending Headlines about F5

Here are the key news stories impacting F5 this week:

• Negative Sentiment: Seven insiders, including F5’s CFO, CTOs and EVPs, sold shares in transactions dated November 3–4. The sales totaled about $7.2 million; several executives reduced their individual holdings substantially. The cluster of sales may weigh on sentiment, although the pre-arranged plans temper the signal. See the SEC filings: Read More., Read More., Read More., Read More., Read More., Read More. and Read More..

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

FFIV has been the topic of a number of research reports. Evercore reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of F5 in a report on Wednesday, October 28th. Wall Street Zen raised shares of F5 from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday, August 1st. Royal Bank Of Canada boosted their price objective on shares of F5 from $525.00 to $540.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 28th. Weiss Ratings downgraded shares of F5 from a “buy (b)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a research report on Tuesday. Finally, Morgan Stanley increased their price objective on shares of F5 from $415.00 to $448.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 28th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, seven have assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, F5 has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $443.00.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On F5

Large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Maryland State Retirement & Pension System boosted its stake in F5 by 14.0% during the 3rd quarter. Maryland State Retirement & Pension System now owns 3,616 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $1,610,000 after purchasing an additional 443 shares in the last quarter. Ritholtz Wealth Management increased its position in shares of F5 by 41.8% during the 3rd quarter. Ritholtz Wealth Management now owns 3,735 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $1,663,000 after purchasing an additional 1,101 shares during the period. Jacobi Capital Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of F5 in the 3rd quarter worth $53,000. Machina Capital S.A.S. raised its stake in shares of F5 by 58.9% in the 3rd quarter. Machina Capital S.A.S. now owns 5,216 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $2,322,000 after buying an additional 1,933 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Lido Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in shares of F5 by 15.7% in the third quarter. Lido Advisors LLC now owns 6,736 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $2,999,000 after buying an additional 914 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

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.