F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) CTO Michael Montoya Sells 1,297 Shares of Stock

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) CTO Michael Montoya sold 1,297 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $329.68, for a total transaction of $427,594.96. Following the sale, the chief technology officer directly owned 1,309 shares in the company, valued at $431,551.12. The trade was a 49.77% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan.

F5 Price Performance

Shares of FFIV opened at $311.74 on Friday. F5, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $223.76 and a fifty-two week high of $483.30. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $423.65 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $363.77. The stock has a market cap of $17.65 billion, a PE ratio of 24.88, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.92 and a beta of 1.07. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23, a quick ratio of 1.59 and a current ratio of 1.73.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, October 27th. The network technology company reported $4.42 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $4.26 by $0.16. F5 had a net margin of 21.14% and a return on equity of 21.00%. The firm had revenue of $917.43 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $884.03 million. During the same period last year, the business earned $4.39 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 13.2% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts anticipate that F5, Inc. will post 14.19 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

F5 announced that its board has authorized a stock repurchase program on Tuesday, October 27th that authorizes the company to buy back $1.50 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the network technology company to repurchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are typically an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Institutional Trading of F5

Several institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Bank of America Corp DE bought a new position in shares of F5 during the second quarter valued at $70,355,000. BlackRock Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of F5 during the second quarter valued at $2,611,637,000. Nykredit A S purchased a new stake in shares of F5 during the second quarter valued at $14,596,000. Amundi increased its holdings in F5 by 96.0% in the 2nd quarter. Amundi now owns 555,809 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $231,194,000 after buying an additional 272,273 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC increased its holdings in 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 buying an additional 2,814 shares in the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts have issued reports on the company. Piper Sandler cut F5 from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $461.00 price objective for the company. in a research note on Wednesday, October 28th. Wall Street Zen raised F5 from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Saturday, August 1st. Weiss Ratings cut F5 from a “buy (b)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a research note on Tuesday. Barclays restated a “mixed” rating on shares of F5 in a report on Wednesday, October 28th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC reissued a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Tuesday, July 28th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, seven have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $443.00.

Trending Headlines about F5

Here are the key news stories impacting F5 this week:

• Negative Sentiment: Seven insiders, including F5’s CFO, CTOs and EVPs, sold shares in transactions dated November 3–4. The sales totaled about $7.2 million; several executives reduced their individual holdings substantially. The cluster of sales may weigh on sentiment, although the pre-arranged plans temper the signal. See the SEC filings: Read More., Read More., Read More., Read More., Read More., Read More. and Read More..

F5 Company Profile

F5, Inc (NASDAQ: FFIV) provides application delivery, security and traffic management solutions for enterprises, service providers and public-sector organizations. Its offerings are designed to help customers secure, optimize and manage applications and application programming interfaces (APIs) across data centers, private and public clouds, and edge environments.

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