F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Reaches New 1-Year High – Here’s What Happened

Shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) hit a new 52-week high during trading on Tuesday . The stock traded as high as $385.00 and last traded at $379.74, with a volume of 827242 shares trading hands. The stock had previously closed at $362.58.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several analysts have recently commented on the stock. Evercore upgraded shares of F5 from an “in-line” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $475.00 price objective on the stock in a research report on Monday. Barclays raised their price objective on shares of F5 from $283.00 to $292.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 29th. Needham & Company LLC restated a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Wednesday, April 29th. Weiss Ratings upgraded shares of F5 from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a research report on Monday, March 30th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on shares of F5 from $355.00 to $365.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 29th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $338.11.

F5 Stock Up 4.7%

The company has a market capitalization of $21.42 billion, a PE ratio of 31.15, a PEG ratio of 8.34 and a beta of 1.00. The company’s 50 day moving average is $308.83 and its two-hundred day moving average is $277.39.

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

Insider Activity at F5

In related news, Director Alan Higginson sold 1,770 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $275.25, for a total transaction of $487,192.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 6,840 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,882,710. This trade represents a 20.56% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CTO Kunal Anand sold 3,123 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, May 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $322.33, for a total transaction of $1,006,636.59. Following the transaction, the chief technology officer directly owned 12,194 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,930,492.02. The trade was a 20.39% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold a total of 29,328 shares of company stock valued at $9,319,571 in the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 0.48% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On F5

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in FFIV. Jericho Capital Asset Management L.P. purchased a new position in shares of F5 in the 4th quarter worth $579,699,000. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. grew its stake in shares of F5 by 15,103.5% in the 4th quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. now owns 1,170,216 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $298,709,000 after buying an additional 1,162,519 shares in the last quarter. First Trust Advisors LP grew its stake in shares of F5 by 68.5% in the 4th quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 2,753,652 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $702,897,000 after buying an additional 1,119,291 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new position in shares of F5 in the 4th quarter worth $205,706,000. Finally, Deutsche Bank AG grew its stake in shares of F5 by 175.2% in the 4th quarter. Deutsche Bank AG now owns 958,947 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $244,781,000 after buying an additional 610,437 shares in the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other 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.