F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Rating Lowered to “Buy” at Wall Street Zen

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) was downgraded by Wall Street Zen from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report issued on Thursday.

FFIV has been the topic of a number of other research reports. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “buy” rating and set a $320.00 price objective on shares of F5 in a report on Tuesday, April 29th. Barclays decreased their price objective on shares of F5 from $296.00 to $274.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, April 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their price objective on shares of F5 from $296.00 to $285.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, April 17th. Royal Bank of Canada reissued a “sector perform” rating and set a $290.00 price objective on shares of F5 in a report on Tuesday, April 29th. Finally, William Blair reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of F5 in a report on Tuesday, April 29th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $282.56.

F5 Stock Performance

NASDAQ FFIV opened at $282.10 on Thursday. The firm has a market cap of $16.20 billion, a PE ratio of 28.04, a P/E/G ratio of 3.85 and a beta of 1.00. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $266.98 and its two-hundred day moving average is $267.68. F5 has a one year low of $164.45 and a one year high of $313.00.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last issued its earnings results on Monday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.42 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.11 by $0.31. The business had revenue of $590.16 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $719.91 million. F5 had a net margin of 20.58% and a return on equity of 20.98%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 7.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $2.91 earnings per share. Research analysts predict that F5 will post 11.2 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at F5

In other news, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 1,300 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, April 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $265.37, for a total value of $344,981.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 148,647 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $39,446,454.39. The trade was a 0.87% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, Director Alan Higginson sold 1,272 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, May 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $286.69, for a total transaction of $364,669.68. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 9,919 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,843,678.11. This represents a 11.37% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 10,577 shares of company stock valued at $2,926,029 over the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 0.52% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On F5

A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of FFIV. GAMMA Investing LLC increased its position in F5 by 34,698.9% during the first quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 746,089 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $198,661,000 after purchasing an additional 743,945 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new position in F5 during the fourth quarter worth approximately $171,127,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership increased its position in F5 by 598.3% during the fourth quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 425,275 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $106,944,000 after purchasing an additional 364,372 shares during the last quarter. Hotchkis & Wiley Capital Management LLC increased its position in F5 by 6.2% during the first quarter. Hotchkis & Wiley Capital Management LLC now owns 5,387,700 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $1,434,583,000 after purchasing an additional 312,415 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. increased its position in F5 by 110.4% during the first quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 560,493 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $149,242,000 after purchasing an additional 294,050 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.