F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Stock Price Breaks Above 200 Day Moving Average – Time to Sell?

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) crossed above its 200-day moving average during trading on Monday. The stock has a 200-day moving average of $378.96 and traded as high as $461.49. F5 shares last traded at $458.53, with a volume of 377,619 shares changing hands.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages have issued reports on FFIV. Wall Street Zen raised F5 from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Saturday, August 1st. Zacks Research downgraded shares of F5 from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, July 27th. Piper Sandler restated an “overweight” rating and issued a $461.00 price objective (up from $423.00) on shares of F5 in a report on Tuesday, July 28th. Morgan Stanley increased their target price on shares of F5 from $380.00 to $415.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 28th. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada reiterated an “outperform” rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Thursday, July 16th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, F5 currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $416.62.

F5 Stock Performance

The firm has a market cap of $26.43 billion, a PE ratio of 37.15, a PEG ratio of 4.34 and a beta of 1.03. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $413.71 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $380.28.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Monday, July 27th. The network technology company reported $4.73 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $4.00 by $0.73. The firm had revenue of $865.08 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $834.60 million. F5 had a net margin of 21.95% and a return on equity of 21.54%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 10.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $4.16 earnings per share. F5 has set its Q4 2026 guidance at 4.140-4.260 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 17.210-17.330 EPS. On average, analysts expect that F5, Inc. will post 13.65 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity

In related news, insider John Maddison sold 1,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $405.85, for a total transaction of $405,850.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 1,353 shares in the company, valued at $549,115.05. This represents a 42.50% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, Director Nikhil Mehta sold 4,000 shares of F5 stock in a transaction on Thursday, July 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $388.95, for a total transaction of $1,555,800.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director owned 7,043 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,739,374.85. This trade represents a 36.22% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 16,829 shares of company stock valued at $6,815,302. 0.48% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On F5

A number of institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of FFIV. CX Institutional lifted its holdings in F5 by 17.7% in the third quarter. CX Institutional now owns 733 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $326,000 after buying an additional 110 shares during the period. QRG Capital Management Inc. grew its holdings in shares of F5 by 14.5% during the 2nd quarter. QRG Capital Management Inc. now owns 1,474 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $613,000 after acquiring an additional 187 shares during the period. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC raised its position in shares of F5 by 14.6% in the 2nd quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC now owns 22,144 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $9,211,000 after acquiring an additional 2,814 shares in the last quarter. National Pension Service raised its position in shares of F5 by 10.5% in the 2nd quarter. National Pension Service now owns 14,091 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $5,861,000 after acquiring an additional 1,341 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Integrated Wealth Concepts LLC purchased a new position in shares of F5 in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $459,000. 90.66% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

About F5

F5, Inc develops application delivery, security and management technologies that help organizations deploy, protect and optimize applications across data centers, public clouds, edge environments and distributed networks. Its offerings are designed to support application availability, performance, scalability and security across hybrid and multi-cloud architectures.

The company’s portfolio includes BIG-IP application delivery and security solutions, NGINX web and application delivery technologies, and F5 Distributed Cloud services.