F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) CEO Francois Locoh-Donou Sells 3,783 Shares of Stock

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 3,783 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, November 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $313.70, for a total value of $1,186,727.10. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 185,683 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $58,248,757.10. The trade was a 2.00% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan.

F5 Stock Performance

Shares of F5 stock opened at $317.75 on Tuesday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.59, a current ratio of 1.73 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $420.14 and its two-hundred day moving average is $364.31. F5, Inc. has a 52 week low of $223.76 and a 52 week high of $483.30. The company has a market capitalization of $17.99 billion, a PE ratio of 25.36, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.92 and a beta of 1.07.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, October 27th. The network technology company reported $4.42 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $4.26 by $0.16. The business had revenue of $917.43 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $884.03 million. F5 had a return on equity of 21.00% and a net margin of 21.14%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 13.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company earned $4.39 earnings per share. As a group, analysts expect that F5, Inc. will post 14.19 earnings per share for the current year.

F5 declared that its board has approved a stock buyback program on Tuesday, October 27th that authorizes the company to buy back $1.50 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the network technology company to purchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Share repurchase programs are usually an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts have issued reports on the stock. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Tuesday, July 28th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on shares of F5 from $500.00 to $515.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 28th. Royal Bank Of Canada raised their target price on shares of F5 from $525.00 to $540.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 28th. Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on shares of F5 from $415.00 to $448.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 28th. Finally, Wolfe Research lowered F5 from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, October 29th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, seven have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, F5 presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $443.00.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On F5

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. BlackRock Inc. bought a new stake in shares of F5 in the second quarter valued at about $2,611,637,000. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. lifted its stake in F5 by 23.9% in the third quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 732,219 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $325,969,000 after acquiring an additional 141,131 shares during the period. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC grew its holdings in F5 by 24.8% during the 2nd quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 726,844 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $302,338,000 after acquiring an additional 144,534 shares in the last quarter. William Blair Investment Management LLC bought a new position in F5 during the 2nd quarter worth about $243,865,000. Finally, Amundi grew its holdings in F5 by 96.0% during the 2nd quarter. Amundi now owns 555,809 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $231,194,000 after acquiring an additional 272,273 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

F5 Company Profile

F5, Inc provides application delivery and security solutions that help organizations manage, protect and optimize applications across data centers, public clouds and edge environments. Its offerings serve businesses, government agencies and service providers around the world.

The company’s products and services include BIG-IP application delivery and security software, NGINX technologies for application development and delivery, and F5 Distributed Cloud Services. These offerings support functions such as traffic management, web and API protection, application security and multicloud connectivity.

Founded in 1996 and headquartered in Seattle, F5 was previously known as F5 Networks before adopting the F5 name in 2021.