F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) Sees Large Decline in Short Interest

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) was the target of a large drop in short interest during the month of March. As of March 31st, there was short interest totalling 1,710,000 shares, a drop of 6.0% from the March 15th total of 1,820,000 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 445,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 3.8 days. Approximately 2.9% of the company’s shares are short sold.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other F5 news, CFO Francis J. Pelzer sold 500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, January 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $180.09, for a total value of $90,045.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 31,508 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,674,275.72. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In other F5 news, CFO Francis J. Pelzer sold 500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, January 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $180.09, for a total value of $90,045.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 31,508 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,674,275.72. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 851 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $183.06, for a total value of $155,784.06. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 15,008 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,747,364.48. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 10,201 shares of company stock valued at $1,908,705 in the last three months. 0.58% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Register Financial Advisors LLC acquired a new position in F5 during the first quarter worth approximately $38,000. Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC increased its holdings in shares of F5 by 36.2% in the first quarter. Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC now owns 11,324 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $2,147,000 after purchasing an additional 3,008 shares during the period. Cardinal Capital Management increased its holdings in shares of F5 by 9.6% in the first quarter. Cardinal Capital Management now owns 17,775 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $3,370,000 after purchasing an additional 1,552 shares during the period. Janiczek Wealth Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of F5 by 92.2% in the first quarter. Janiczek Wealth Management LLC now owns 496 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $94,000 after purchasing an additional 238 shares during the period. Finally, Columbus Macro LLC acquired a new position in shares of F5 in the first quarter valued at approximately $208,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

F5 Trading Down 0.4 %

FFIV stock traded down $0.72 during trading on Tuesday, hitting $183.06. 243,057 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 434,104. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $188.26 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $175.08. The stock has a market capitalization of $10.77 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.90, a PEG ratio of 2.77 and a beta of 1.11. F5 has a 52-week low of $127.05 and a 52-week high of $199.49.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last posted its earnings results on Monday, January 29th. The network technology company reported $3.43 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.04 by $0.39. The firm had revenue of $693.00 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $684.77 million. F5 had a return on equity of 20.81% and a net margin of 16.43%. The firm’s revenue was down 1.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $1.65 earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that F5 will post 9.58 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts recently issued reports on FFIV shares. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “buy” rating and set a $220.00 price objective on shares of F5 in a research report on Tuesday, February 13th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on F5 from $197.00 to $205.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, April 11th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised their target price on F5 from $156.00 to $179.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 30th. Barclays raised their target price on F5 from $163.00 to $206.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 30th. Finally, Piper Sandler raised their target price on F5 from $170.00 to $187.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 30th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have issued a hold rating, three have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, F5 currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $186.82.

F5 Company Profile

F5, Inc provides multi-cloud application security and delivery solutions in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific region. The company's distributed cloud services enable its customers to deploy, secure, and operate applications in any architecture, from on-premises to the public cloud.