F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) Sees Significant Decrease in Short Interest

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) saw a significant decrease in short interest in February. As of February 27th, there was short interest totaling 1,830,697 shares, a decrease of 12.5% from the February 12th total of 2,093,014 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 715,430 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 2.6 days. Approximately 3.3% of the shares of the stock are sold short. Approximately 3.3% of the shares of the stock are sold short. Based on an average daily volume of 715,430 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 2.6 days.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, EVP Chad Michael Whalen sold 688 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, March 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $277.05, for a total value of $190,610.40. Following the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 26,329 shares in the company, valued at $7,294,449.45. This represents a 2.55% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, Director Alan Higginson sold 1,770 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $275.25, for a total transaction of $487,192.50. Following 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. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Over the last ninety days, insiders have sold 22,391 shares of company stock valued at $6,121,487. 0.48% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Hazlett Burt & Watson Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of F5 in the fourth quarter worth approximately $26,000. Hantz Financial Services Inc. grew its holdings in F5 by 109.8% in the fourth quarter. Hantz Financial Services Inc. now owns 107 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $27,000 after purchasing an additional 56 shares during the period. Elyxium Wealth LLC acquired a new position in F5 during the fourth quarter worth approximately $28,000. Abich Financial Wealth Management LLC acquired a new position in F5 during the third quarter worth approximately $37,000. Finally, UMB Bank n.a. raised its stake in F5 by 64.5% during the fourth quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 153 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $39,000 after purchasing an additional 60 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms have recently weighed in on FFIV. Weiss Ratings cut F5 from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 27th. Royal Bank Of Canada lifted their price objective on F5 from $325.00 to $345.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 28th. Barclays boosted their target price on shares of F5 from $267.00 to $283.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 28th. The Goldman Sachs Group upped their target price on shares of F5 from $285.00 to $320.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 28th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised shares of F5 from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their price target for the stock from $295.00 to $345.00 in a research note on Thursday, January 15th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have given a Hold rating and two have issued a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $309.89.

F5 Stock Down 1.9%

FFIV stock opened at $283.73 on Tuesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $16.04 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.47, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 8.19 and a beta of 1.01. F5 has a 52-week low of $223.76 and a 52-week high of $346.00. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $275.33 and its 200-day simple moving average is $279.41.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, January 27th. The network technology company reported $4.45 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.63 by $0.82. F5 had a return on equity of 22.08% and a net margin of 22.45%.The firm had revenue of $822.47 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $755.97 million. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $3.84 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 7.3% compared to the same quarter last year. F5 has set its Q2 2026 guidance at 3.340-3.460 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 15.650-16.050 EPS. As a group, analysts anticipate that F5 will post 11.2 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

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.