F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Sets New 1-Year High – Here’s Why

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) shares hit a new 52-week high during mid-day trading on Wednesday . The company 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

A number of analysts recently issued reports on the company. Piper Sandler reissued an “overweight” rating on shares of F5 in a report on Wednesday, April 29th. Barclays increased their price objective on F5 from $283.00 to $292.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 29th. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their price objective on F5 from $285.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 28th. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a report on Wednesday, April 29th. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada increased their price objective on F5 from $345.00 to $375.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 29th. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have assigned a Hold rating and two have given a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, F5 has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $316.44.

F5 Stock Performance

The firm has a market capitalization of $20.57 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.91, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 8.27 and a beta of 1.00. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $305.38 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $276.09.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.90 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.47 by $0.43. The business had revenue of $811.70 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $783.82 million. F5 had a return on equity of 21.50% and a net margin of 21.96%.The company’s quarterly revenue was up 11.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $3.42 EPS. F5 has set its Q3 2026 guidance at 3.910-4.030 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 16.250-16.550 EPS. On average, equities analysts anticipate that F5, Inc. will post 12.71 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 3,783 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $337.39, for a total transaction of $1,276,346.37. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 146,989 shares in the company, valued at approximately $49,592,618.71. This represents a 2.51% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CTO Kunal Anand sold 3,123 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, May 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $322.33, for a total value of $1,006,636.59. Following the transaction, the chief technology officer owned 12,194 shares in the company, valued at $3,930,492.02. This trade represents a 20.39% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Over the last three months, insiders sold 29,328 shares of company stock worth $9,319,571. 0.48% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On F5

Several institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in shares of F5 by 1.6% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 7,357,293 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $1,878,023,000 after purchasing an additional 114,533 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its position in shares of F5 by 1.7% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 3,226,326 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $1,042,716,000 after purchasing an additional 53,712 shares during the last quarter. First Trust Advisors LP increased its position in shares of F5 by 68.5% during the 4th quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 2,753,652 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $702,897,000 after purchasing an additional 1,119,291 shares during the last quarter. Jericho Capital Asset Management L.P. bought a new position in shares of F5 during the 4th quarter valued at about $579,699,000. Finally, Invesco Ltd. grew its position in F5 by 7.5% during the 4th quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 1,537,680 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $392,508,000 after acquiring an additional 106,616 shares during the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.