Morgan Stanley Increases F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Price Target to $230.00

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) had its price target raised by analysts at Morgan Stanley from $215.00 to $230.00 in a report issued on Tuesday, Benzinga reports. The firm currently has an “equal weight” rating on the network technology company’s stock. Morgan Stanley’s price target would indicate a potential upside of 5.33% from the stock’s current price.

Several other research analysts also recently weighed in on FFIV. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their target price on shares of F5 from $210.00 to $215.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 30th. Evercore ISI increased their target price on F5 from $180.00 to $210.00 and gave the stock an “in-line” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 30th. StockNews.com downgraded F5 from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 10th. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their price objective on shares of F5 from $185.00 to $212.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 24th. Finally, Barclays upped their target price on shares of F5 from $189.00 to $214.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 30th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $212.33.

F5 Stock Performance

NASDAQ FFIV opened at $218.36 on Tuesday. The business’s fifty day moving average is $211.73 and its 200 day moving average is $188.60. F5 has a fifty-two week low of $148.10 and a fifty-two week high of $224.47. The company has a market capitalization of $12.80 billion, a PE ratio of 26.15, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.54 and a beta of 1.06.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Monday, July 29th. The network technology company reported $3.36 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.97 by $0.39. F5 had a return on equity of 21.03% and a net margin of 19.94%. The company had revenue of $695.50 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $686.06 million. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $2.46 EPS. The firm’s revenue was down 1.0% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that F5 will post 10.17 EPS for the current year.

F5 declared that its board has initiated a share buyback plan on Monday, October 28th that allows the company to buyback $1.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization allows the network technology company to buy up to 7.9% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are generally an indication that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Activity

In related news, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 851 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $192.71, for a total value of $163,996.21. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 16,000 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,083,360. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. In other F5 news, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 1,450 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, August 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $188.35, for a total value of $273,107.50. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 124,022 shares in the company, valued at approximately $23,359,543.70. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 851 shares of F5 stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $192.71, for a total value of $163,996.21. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 16,000 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,083,360. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 6,551 shares of company stock valued at $1,334,698. 0.58% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On F5

Large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in F5 by 0.4% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 7,465,022 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $1,415,294,000 after buying an additional 29,154 shares during the last quarter. American Century Companies Inc. raised its position in shares of F5 by 10.5% in the 2nd quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 1,709,296 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $294,392,000 after purchasing an additional 162,820 shares during the last quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. grew its position in F5 by 6,700.2% during the 2nd quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 848,388 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $146,118,000 after purchasing an additional 835,912 shares during the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC increased its stake in F5 by 48.9% during the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 652,972 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $111,932,000 after purchasing an additional 214,351 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Acadian Asset Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of F5 by 14.2% in the first quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 625,734 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $118,607,000 after buying an additional 77,611 shares during the last quarter. 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.