Chad Michael Whalen Sells 703 Shares of F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Stock

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) EVP Chad Michael Whalen sold 703 shares of F5 stock in a transaction on Monday, August 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $404.86, for a total transaction of $284,616.58. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president owned 21,536 shares in the company, valued at $8,719,064.96. The trade was a 3.16% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan.

Chad Michael Whalen also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Friday, May 8th, Chad Michael Whalen sold 6,200 shares of F5 stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $350.19, for a total transaction of $2,171,178.00.

F5 Price Performance

F5 stock opened at $411.32 on Thursday. The company has a market cap of $23.21 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.75, a P/E/G ratio of 4.06 and a beta of 1.03. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $402.59 and a 200-day moving average of $337.31. F5, Inc. has a one year low of $223.76 and a one year high of $435.00.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last released its earnings results on Monday, July 27th. The network technology company reported $4.73 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $4.00 by $0.73. F5 had a return on equity of 21.54% and a net margin of 21.95%.The business had revenue of $865.08 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $834.60 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $4.16 earnings per share. F5’s quarterly revenue was up 10.9% on a year-over-year basis. F5 has set its Q4 2026 guidance at 4.140-4.260 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 17.210-17.330 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that F5, Inc. will post 13.53 earnings per share for the current year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on FFIV shares. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a research note on Tuesday, July 28th. Piper Sandler restated an “overweight” rating and set a $461.00 target price (up from $423.00) on shares of F5 in a report on Tuesday, July 28th. Zacks Research downgraded shares of F5 from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Monday, July 27th. Morgan Stanley upped their price target on shares of F5 from $380.00 to $415.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 28th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price target on shares of F5 from $500.00 to $515.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 28th. Five equities research 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. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $416.62.

Institutional Trading of F5

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in FFIV. Millennium Management LLC raised its stake in F5 by 166.5% in the 1st quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 62,906 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $16,750,000 after acquiring an additional 39,305 shares during the period. NewEdge Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in F5 by 1,281.4% during the 1st quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC now owns 967 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $257,000 after purchasing an additional 897 shares during the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. boosted its position in F5 by 38.4% during the first quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 298,297 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $79,428,000 after purchasing an additional 82,835 shares during the period. Focus Partners Wealth acquired a new position in shares of F5 in the first quarter valued at $257,000. Finally, Geneos Wealth Management Inc. increased its holdings in shares of F5 by 288.1% in the first quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 163 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $43,000 after purchasing an additional 121 shares during the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

F5 News Roundup

Here are the key news stories impacting F5 this week:

• Positive Sentiment: F5’s latest quarterly results were well above expectations: earnings per share reached $4.73 versus the $4.00 consensus, while revenue of $865.1 million exceeded the $834.6 million estimate. Revenue increased 10.9% year over year, and management maintained its fourth-quarter and full-year 2026 earnings guidance. F5 earnings information
• Positive Sentiment: F5 was ranked in the “Leader” tier of SecureIQLab’s 2026 Cloud WAAP CyberRisk Validation Comparative Report, supporting the company’s competitive position in cloud-based web application and API protection. SecureIQLab report
• Positive Sentiment: Several analysts raised their targets after the earnings report. JPMorgan increased its target to $515 with an overweight rating, Piper Sandler raised its target to $461 while maintaining an overweight rating, and Morgan Stanley lifted its target to $415.
• Neutral Sentiment: Analyst opinion remains mixed, with five Buy ratings, five Hold ratings and one Sell rating. The consensus rating is Hold and the average price target is $416.62, suggesting limited upside from recent trading levels. F5’s valuation is also elevated at roughly 33 times earnings.
• Negative Sentiment: Multiple executives sold shares on August 3 under pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 plans. The transactions included sales by the CFO, CTO and three executive vice presidents totaling approximately $1.30 million. In addition, Director Nikhil Ramesh Mehta sold 4,000 shares worth about $1.56 million on July 30. The planned nature of the transactions reduces their significance, but the cluster of sales may create a modest overhang. F5 insider selling report

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.