F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Downgraded by Wall Street Zen to Buy

Wall Street Zen cut shares of F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) from a strong-buy rating to a buy rating in a research note published on Friday morning.

A number of other analysts have also commented on FFIV. Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on F5 from $305.00 to $312.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 31st. Piper Sandler boosted their price objective on F5 from $304.00 to $355.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, July 31st. Barclays upped their target price on F5 from $274.00 to $321.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 31st. Wolfe Research started coverage on shares of F5 in a research report on Monday, July 7th. They issued an “outperform” rating for the company. Finally, Weiss Ratings restated a “buy (b)” rating on shares of F5 in a research note on Saturday, September 27th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, seven have issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, F5 has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $309.89.

F5 Stock Down 0.7%

F5 stock opened at $324.98 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $18.67 billion, a PE ratio of 28.63, a PEG ratio of 3.57 and a beta of 1.06. F5 has a 12-month low of $213.24 and a 12-month high of $337.39. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $319.17 and its 200 day moving average is $293.52.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 30th. The network technology company reported $4.16 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.49 by $0.67. F5 had a net margin of 22.06% and a return on equity of 21.77%. The business had revenue of $780.37 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $750.64 million. During the same period last year, the company posted $3.36 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 12.2% on a year-over-year basis. F5 has set its FY 2025 guidance at 15.240-15.380 EPS. Q4 2025 guidance at 3.870-3.990 EPS. Sell-side analysts expect that F5 will post 11.2 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity at F5

In other F5 news, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 1,347 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, August 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $309.73, for a total value of $417,206.31. Following the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 20,699 shares in the company, valued at $6,411,101.27. The trade was a 6.11% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Lyra Amber Schramm sold 2,701 shares of F5 stock in a transaction dated Monday, September 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $316.57, for a total value of $855,055.57. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 11,945 shares of company stock worth $3,796,542. Company insiders own 0.52% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On F5

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Whipplewood Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of F5 by 275.0% in the second quarter. Whipplewood Advisors LLC now owns 90 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $26,000 after purchasing an additional 66 shares in the last quarter. Annis Gardner Whiting Capital Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in F5 by 134.1% in the 1st quarter. Annis Gardner Whiting Capital Advisors LLC now owns 103 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $27,000 after buying an additional 59 shares during the period. Golden State Wealth Management LLC grew its stake in F5 by 275.0% in the 1st quarter. Golden State Wealth Management LLC now owns 105 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $28,000 after buying an additional 77 shares in the last quarter. Groupe la Francaise bought a new stake in F5 during the 1st quarter valued at $34,000. Finally, Flaharty Asset Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of F5 during the first quarter worth $35,000. 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.