F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Price Target Raised to $260.00 at Bank of America

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) had its price target increased by equities research analysts at Bank of America from $180.00 to $260.00 in a research note issued on Friday,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has an “underperform” rating on the network technology company’s stock. Bank of America‘s target price indicates a potential downside of 13.87% from the company’s previous close.

FFIV has been the topic of several other reports. StockNews.com upgraded shares of F5 from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on F5 from $225.00 to $250.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. Barclays raised their price objective on shares of F5 from $246.00 to $296.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Piper Sandler upped their target price on shares of F5 from $246.00 to $304.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Finally, Morgan Stanley boosted their price target on shares of F5 from $262.00 to $310.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating, one has given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, F5 has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $295.00.

F5 Stock Up 0.1 %

Shares of F5 stock traded up $0.39 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $301.87. The stock had a trading volume of 222,465 shares, compared to its average volume of 633,755. The firm has a market cap of $17.51 billion, a P/E ratio of 30.02, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.06 and a beta of 1.06. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $259.25 and a two-hundred day moving average of $227.07. F5 has a 12-month low of $159.01 and a 12-month high of $308.00.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Monday, October 28th. The network technology company reported $3.67 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.45 by $0.22. F5 had a return on equity of 21.34% and a net margin of 20.58%. The firm had revenue of $747.00 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $730.43 million. During the same period last year, the company earned $2.76 EPS. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts expect that F5 will post 11.01 earnings per share for the current year.

F5 declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a share buyback plan on Monday, October 28th that authorizes the company to repurchase $1.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the network technology company to repurchase up to 7.9% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are typically an indication that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Activity

In other F5 news, Director Alan Higginson sold 825 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $239.77, for a total value of $197,810.25. Following the sale, the director now owns 9,882 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,369,407.14. This represents a 7.71 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Insiders own 0.58% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of F5

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC acquired a new position in shares of F5 during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $28,000. Kathleen S. Wright Associates Inc. acquired a new stake in F5 during the third quarter worth approximately $32,000. Friedenthal Financial acquired a new stake in shares of F5 during the fourth quarter worth $50,000. Venturi Wealth Management LLC lifted its position in F5 by 79.8% during the third quarter. Venturi Wealth Management LLC now owns 320 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $70,000 after buying an additional 142 shares during the period. Finally, Point72 Hong Kong Ltd acquired a new stake in F5 in the 3rd quarter worth about $84,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

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.