F5’s (FFIV) “Outperform” Rating Reaffirmed at Royal Bank Of Canada

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV)‘s stock had its “outperform” rating restated by investment analysts at Royal Bank Of Canada in a note issued to investors on Friday,Benzinga reports. They presently have a $425.00 price objective on the network technology company’s stock. Royal Bank Of Canada’s price objective indicates a potential upside of 12.27% from the company’s previous close.

A number of other research firms have also recently commented on FFIV. Barclays reissued an “overweight” rating on shares of F5 in a report on Tuesday. Bank of America raised their price target on F5 from $250.00 to $300.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a report on Tuesday. Morgan Stanley raised their price target on F5 from $340.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Wednesday, May 20th. Evercore raised F5 from an “in-line” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $475.00 price target on the stock in a report on Monday, May 18th. Finally, Piper Sandler raised their price target on F5 from $356.00 to $423.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, four have assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $369.44.

F5 Stock Performance

Shares of FFIV stock traded down $4.89 on Friday, reaching $378.54. The stock had a trading volume of 192,149 shares, compared to its average volume of 817,060. The stock has a market cap of $21.36 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.01, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 8.92 and a beta of 1.00. F5 has a 1 year low of $223.76 and a 1 year high of $399.59. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $325.16 and a 200 day simple moving average of $285.18.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.90 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.47 by $0.43. The firm had revenue of $811.70 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $783.82 million. F5 had a return on equity of 21.50% and a net margin of 21.96%.The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business posted $3.42 EPS. F5 has set its Q3 2026 guidance at 3.910-4.030 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 16.250-16.550 EPS. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that F5 will post 12.79 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at F5

In other news, CFO Edward Cooper Werner sold 1,500 shares of F5 stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $350.00, for a total value of $525,000.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer directly owned 2,906 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,017,100. The trade was a 34.04% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, EVP Chad Michael Whalen sold 6,200 shares of F5 stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $350.19, for a total value of $2,171,178.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 20,832 shares in the company, valued at $7,295,158.08. This trade represents a 22.94% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 24,491 shares of company stock valued at $7,966,227. 0.48% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On F5

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings in shares of F5 by 1.6% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 7,357,293 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $1,878,023,000 after purchasing an additional 114,533 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its holdings in shares of F5 by 1.7% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 3,226,326 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $1,042,716,000 after purchasing an additional 53,712 shares during the last quarter. First Trust Advisors LP grew its position in F5 by 68.5% in the fourth quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 2,753,652 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $702,897,000 after acquiring an additional 1,119,291 shares in the last quarter. Jericho Capital Asset Management L.P. purchased a new position in F5 in the fourth quarter worth about $579,699,000. Finally, Invesco Ltd. grew its position in F5 by 7.5% in the fourth quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 1,537,680 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $392,508,000 after acquiring an additional 106,616 shares in the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

About F5

F5 Inc (NASDAQ:FFIV) specializes in application services and delivery networking, helping organizations ensure the availability, performance and security of their applications. The company’s core offerings include advanced load balancing, traffic management and application security solutions designed to optimize user experiences and protect against threats such as distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and web application exploits.

At the heart of F5’s product portfolio is the BIG-IP platform, which provides a suite of software modules for local and global traffic management, secure web application firewalling and DNS service delivery.