Insider Selling: F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) CTO Sells $427,594.96 in Stock

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) CTO Michael Montoya sold 1,297 shares of F5 stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $329.68, for a total transaction of $427,594.96. Following the transaction, the chief technology officer directly owned 1,309 shares in the company, valued at approximately $431,551.12. This represents a 49.77% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan.

F5 Stock Down 0.3%

FFIV stock opened at $310.84 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $17.60 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.81, a P/E/G ratio of 2.76 and a beta of 1.07. The company has a current ratio of 1.73, a quick ratio of 1.59 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $421.67 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $364.03. F5, Inc. has a 1-year low of $223.76 and a 1-year high of $483.30.

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

F5 declared that its board has authorized a share buyback plan on Tuesday, October 27th that authorizes the company to buy back $1.50 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the network technology company to buy shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are typically a sign that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Key F5 News

Here are the key news stories impacting F5 this week:

• Positive Sentiment: F5’s board authorized a $1.5 billion share-repurchase program, which could support demand for shares. The company also recently beat quarterly earnings and revenue estimates, with revenue up 13.2% year over year.
• Neutral Sentiment: An article noted recent options-market activity in FFIV but did not specify whether trading was bullish or bearish, so its significance is unclear. Do Options Traders Know Something About F5 Stock We Don’t?
• Negative Sentiment: Seven F5 executives and insiders sold roughly $7.2 million in shares in transactions dated November 3–4, including the CFO, CTOs and EVPs. The sales could create near-term concern, though they were made under pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 plans, which can reduce their significance as a signal about executives’ views of the company. Insider Selling: F5 CFO Sells Shares

Hedge Funds Weigh In On F5

Large investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Bank of America Corp DE purchased a new position in F5 during the second quarter valued at approximately $70,355,000. BlackRock Inc. purchased a new stake in F5 in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $2,611,637,000. Nykredit A S purchased a new stake in F5 in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $14,596,000. Amundi lifted its stake in F5 by 96.0% in the 2nd quarter. Amundi now owns 555,809 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $231,194,000 after purchasing an additional 272,273 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in F5 by 14.6% in the 2nd quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC now owns 22,144 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $9,211,000 after purchasing an additional 2,814 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages have recently issued reports on FFIV. Needham & Company LLC restated a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a research note on Tuesday, July 28th. Barclays reissued a “mixed” rating on shares of F5 in a report on Wednesday, October 28th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on F5 from $500.00 to $515.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 28th. Zacks Research lowered F5 from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, July 27th. Finally, Morgan Stanley upped their price target on F5 from $415.00 to $448.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 28th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, seven have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, F5 has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $443.00.

About F5

F5, Inc provides application delivery and security solutions that help organizations manage, protect and optimize applications across data centers, public clouds and edge environments. Its offerings serve businesses, government agencies and service providers around the world.

The company’s products and services include BIG-IP application delivery and security software, NGINX technologies for application development and delivery, and F5 Distributed Cloud Services. These offerings support functions such as traffic management, web and API protection, application security and multicloud connectivity.

Founded in 1996 and headquartered in Seattle, F5 was previously known as F5 Networks before adopting the F5 name in 2021.