Royal Bank Of Canada Forecasts Strong Price Appreciation for F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Stock

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) had its target price hoisted by analysts at Royal Bank Of Canada from $325.00 to $345.00 in a report issued on Wednesday,Benzinga reports. The firm presently has an “outperform” rating on the network technology company’s stock. Royal Bank Of Canada’s target price indicates a potential upside of 18.43% from the company’s current price.

Other research analysts have also recently issued research reports about the stock. The Goldman Sachs Group reissued a “neutral” rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Wednesday. Bank of America decreased their price objective on shares of F5 from $260.00 to $250.00 and set an “underperform” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, October 28th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded F5 from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their price target for the company from $295.00 to $345.00 in a research note on Thursday, January 15th. Zacks Research raised F5 from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, January 9th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a research note on Wednesday. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have assigned a Hold rating and two have issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $307.11.

F5 Trading Up 7.7%

NASDAQ FFIV traded up $20.88 on Wednesday, reaching $291.31. 1,228,603 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,076,938. F5 has a one year low of $223.76 and a one year high of $346.00. The firm has a market capitalization of $16.92 billion, a PE ratio of 24.58, a PEG ratio of 8.39 and a beta of 0.98. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $256.24 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $286.88.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, January 27th. The network technology company reported $4.45 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.63 by $0.82. The company had revenue of $822.47 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $755.97 million. F5 had a net margin of 22.42% and a return on equity of 21.76%. F5’s quarterly revenue was up 7.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $3.84 EPS. F5 has set its Q2 2026 guidance at 3.340-3.460 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 15.650-16.050 EPS. Sell-side analysts forecast that F5 will post 11.2 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other F5 news, EVP Chad Michael Whalen sold 9,436 shares of F5 stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $249.77, for a total transaction of $2,356,829.72. Following the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 25,641 shares in the company, valued at $6,404,352.57. The trade was a 26.90% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 1,300 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $236.99, for a total transaction of $308,087.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 150,323 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $35,625,047.77. The trade was a 0.86% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold 33,815 shares of company stock worth $8,444,286 in the last 90 days. 0.52% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. M&T Bank Corp raised its position in shares of F5 by 17,181.1% during the fourth quarter. M&T Bank Corp now owns 309,158 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $78,916,000 after purchasing an additional 307,369 shares during the period. Evergreen Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of F5 by 259.3% in the 4th quarter. Evergreen Capital Management LLC now owns 3,165 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $808,000 after buying an additional 2,284 shares during the last quarter. Tokio Marine Asset Management Co. Ltd. lifted its stake in F5 by 14.4% in the fourth quarter. Tokio Marine Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 2,545 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $650,000 after acquiring an additional 321 shares during the last quarter. Berger Financial Group Inc lifted its stake in F5 by 1.0% in the 4th quarter. Berger Financial Group Inc now owns 21,828 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $5,572,000 after purchasing an additional 221 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Lipe & Dalton lifted its position in shares of F5 by 6.5% in the fourth quarter. Lipe & Dalton now owns 3,530 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $901,000 after buying an additional 215 shares during the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Trending Headlines about F5

Here are the key news stories impacting F5 this week:

• Positive Sentiment: F5 reported blockbuster Q1 results — GAAP EPS $4.45 vs. ~$3.63 consensus and revenue $822.5M vs. ~$756M; management cited strong product revenue (~11% growth), AI and hybrid/multi‑cloud demand, and the stock rallied after-hours. F5 surges after Q1 results topple estimates
• Positive Sentiment: Company raised guidance materially: FY2026 EPS guide 15.65–16.05 (well above Street ~13.81) and Q2 EPS guide 3.34–3.46 (vs. ~3.05 consensus), supporting the bullish reaction and implying stronger margin/cash conversion than expected. F5 Inc Q1 2026 Earnings Call Highlights
• Neutral Sentiment: Some analysts are staying cautious despite the beat — Needham reaffirmed a “hold,” a reminder that not all sell‑side views turned bullish on the print. Needham hold reaffirmed (Benzinga)
• Neutral Sentiment: Several outlets are debating valuation and whether recent gains already price in AI/application‑security upside; investors should compare elevated guidance to the stock’s P/E and moving averages. Is F5 Fairly Priced (Yahoo Finance)
• Negative Sentiment: Multiple law firms and investor alerts continue to pursue securities‑class actions tied to F5’s disclosed “material cybersecurity incident” last year; ongoing litigation and potential remediation costs/loss of customer trust are a notable risk that could cap gains. KSF class action notice (GlobeNewswire)
• Negative Sentiment: Hagens Berman and other firms are investigating claims related to the cybersecurity incident and its revenue impact; regulators/litigation developments and the Feb. 17 lead‑plaintiff deadlines bear watching. Hagens Berman investigation (GlobeNewswire)

F5 Company Profile

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.