F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) CFO Edward Cooper Werner Sells 599 Shares of Stock

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) CFO Edward Werner sold 599 shares of F5 stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $324.06, for a total transaction of $194,111.94. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer owned 2,851 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $923,895.06. This represents a 17.36% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan.

F5 Stock Down 5.5%

Shares of F5 stock opened at $311.74 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $17.65 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.88, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.92 and a beta of 1.07. The company’s 50 day moving average is $423.65 and its 200 day moving average is $363.77. F5, Inc. has a twelve month low of $223.76 and a twelve month high of $483.30. The company has a quick ratio of 1.59, a current ratio of 1.73 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23.

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

F5 declared that its board has initiated a share buyback program on Tuesday, October 27th that permits the company to buy back $1.50 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization permits the network technology company to buy shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are usually an indication that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. BlackRock Inc. bought a new position in F5 in the 2nd quarter worth $2,611,637,000. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. lifted its position in F5 by 23.9% during the third quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 732,219 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $325,969,000 after purchasing an additional 141,131 shares in the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC lifted its position in F5 by 24.8% during the second quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 726,844 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $302,338,000 after purchasing an additional 144,534 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its holdings in F5 by 0.7% during the first quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 603,086 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $174,463,000 after purchasing an additional 4,296 shares during the period. Finally, William Blair Investment Management LLC bought a new stake in F5 during the second quarter valued at about $243,865,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

More F5 News

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..

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts recently commented on the company. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Tuesday, July 28th. Wall Street Zen raised F5 from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday, August 1st. Evercore restated an “outperform” rating on shares of F5 in a research note on Wednesday, October 28th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on shares of F5 from $500.00 to $515.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 28th. Finally, Wolfe Research lowered shares of F5 from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 29th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, seven have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $443.00.

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.