Morgan Stanley Boosts F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Price Target to $380.00

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) had its price target raised by analysts at Morgan Stanley from $340.00 to $380.00 in a note issued to investors on Wednesday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has an “equal weight” rating on the network technology company’s stock. Morgan Stanley’s price objective points to a potential downside of 1.27% from the stock’s previous close.

FFIV has been the topic of a number of other reports. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their price objective on shares of F5 from $285.00 to $320.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 28th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on shares of F5 from $355.00 to $365.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 29th. Evercore upgraded shares of F5 from an “in-line” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $475.00 price objective on the stock in a research report on Monday. Royal Bank Of Canada lifted their price objective on shares of F5 from $375.00 to $425.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday. Finally, Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Wednesday, April 29th. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, F5 currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $353.00.

F5 Trading Up 0.4%

Shares of F5 stock traded up $1.37 during trading on Wednesday, reaching $384.87. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 148,069 shares, compared to its average volume of 821,917. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $310.78 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $278.27. The firm has a market cap of $21.71 billion, a PE ratio of 31.58, a P/E/G ratio of 8.73 and a beta of 1.00. F5 has a fifty-two week low of $223.76 and a fifty-two week high of $391.25.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.90 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.47 by $0.43. The business had revenue of $811.70 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $783.82 million. F5 had a net margin of 21.96% and a return on equity of 21.50%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 11.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $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, analysts predict that F5 will post 12.79 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity at F5

In other F5 news, EVP Chad Michael Whalen sold 6,200 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, May 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $350.19, for a total transaction of $2,171,178.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 20,832 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,295,158.08. The trade was a 22.94% decrease in their position. 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. Also, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 3,783 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on 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 sale, the chief executive officer owned 146,989 shares in the company, valued at $49,592,618.71. The trade was a 2.51% 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. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 29,328 shares of company stock worth $9,319,571. 0.48% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On F5

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Jericho Capital Asset Management L.P. acquired a new position in F5 in the 4th quarter valued at about $579,699,000. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. increased its stake in shares of F5 by 15,103.5% during the 4th quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. now owns 1,170,216 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $298,709,000 after acquiring an additional 1,162,519 shares during the last quarter. First Trust Advisors LP increased its stake 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 acquiring an additional 1,119,291 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in F5 during the 4th quarter worth approximately $205,706,000. Finally, Deutsche Bank AG increased its position in F5 by 175.2% during the 4th quarter. Deutsche Bank AG now owns 958,947 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $244,781,000 after purchasing an additional 610,437 shares in the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other 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.