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

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV)’s share price hit a new 52-week high during mid-day trading on Wednesday . The stock traded as high as $362.00 and last traded at $354.98, with a volume of 505200 shares. The stock had previously closed at $358.30.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities research analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Needham & Company LLC restated a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a research note on Wednesday, April 29th. Weiss Ratings raised F5 from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a research report on Monday, March 30th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised their target price on F5 from $285.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 28th. Barclays raised their target price on F5 from $283.00 to $292.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 29th. Finally, Piper Sandler reaffirmed an “overweight” rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Wednesday, April 29th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have assigned a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $316.44.

F5 Stock Down 0.9%

The company has a market capitalization of $20.03 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.12, a PEG ratio of 8.29 and a beta of 1.00. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $302.13 and a 200-day simple moving average of $275.23.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.90 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates 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 return on equity of 21.50% and a net margin of 21.96%.The business’s revenue was up 11.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business earned $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 predict that F5, Inc. will post 12.71 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CTO Kunal Anand sold 3,123 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, May 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $322.33, for a total value of $1,006,636.59. Following the completion of the sale, the chief technology officer directly owned 12,194 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,930,492.02. This trade represents a 20.39% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, EVP Chad Michael Whalen sold 6,200 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, May 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $350.19, for a total value of $2,171,178.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president owned 20,832 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,295,158.08. This trade represents a 22.94% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. 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 90 days. 0.48% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of F5

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Pinnacle Wealth Management Advisory Group LLC raised its stake in shares of F5 by 2.6% in the first quarter. Pinnacle Wealth Management Advisory Group LLC now owns 1,447 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $419,000 after buying an additional 36 shares during the period. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC raised its stake in shares of F5 by 3.4% in the fourth quarter. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC now owns 1,190 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $309,000 after buying an additional 39 shares during the period. Pacific Sage Partners LLC raised its stake in shares of F5 by 0.6% in the fourth quarter. Pacific Sage Partners LLC now owns 7,122 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $1,818,000 after buying an additional 40 shares during the period. Meiji Yasuda Asset Management Co Ltd. raised its stake in shares of F5 by 4.4% in the fourth quarter. Meiji Yasuda Asset Management Co Ltd. now owns 968 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $247,000 after buying an additional 41 shares during the period. Finally, Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management Company Ltd raised its stake in shares of F5 by 0.6% in the third quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management Company Ltd now owns 7,386 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $2,387,000 after buying an additional 42 shares during the period. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

F5 Company Profile

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.