F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Issues Earnings Results, Beats Expectations By $0.73 EPS

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) released its quarterly earnings data on Monday. The network technology company reported $4.73 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $4.00 by $0.73, FiscalAI reports. The company had revenue of $865.08 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $834.60 million. F5 had a net margin of 21.96% and a return on equity of 21.50%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 10.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $4.16 EPS. F5 updated its Q4 2026 guidance to 4.140-4.260 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance to 17.210-17.330 EPS.

Here are the key takeaways from F5’s conference call:

• Positive Sentiment: F5 reported strong Q3 execution, with revenue up 11% to $865 million, product revenue up 19%, systems revenue up 32%, and non-GAAP EPS up 14% to $4.73.
• Positive Sentiment: The company raised its fiscal 2026 outlook, now expecting revenue growth of approximately 9%–10% versus prior guidance of 7%–8%, and non-GAAP EPS of $17.21–$17.33 versus $16.25–$16.55 previously.
• Positive Sentiment: AI-related momentum is accelerating across data delivery, runtime security, and AI-factory load balancing; direct AI-use-case customers grew 50% in Q3, while AI-security customers doubled during the quarter.
• Positive Sentiment: Management cited durable demand from hybrid multi-cloud adoption, digital sovereignty, competitive displacements, platform consolidation, and rising application-layer threats, supporting continued hardware expansion and an expected return to solid double-digit software growth in fiscal 2027.
• Negative Sentiment: Management acknowledged that part of the 32% systems growth is tied to the cyclical iSeries refresh, and maintained fiscal 2027 gross-margin guidance of 80%–82% because memory and storage component pricing remains uncertain.

F5 Stock Performance

NASDAQ:FFIV opened at $407.96 on Tuesday. F5 has a one year low of $223.76 and a one year high of $435.00. The firm has a market cap of $23.02 billion, a P/E ratio of 33.47, a P/E/G ratio of 4.60 and a beta of 1.03. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $400.80 and a 200-day simple moving average of $330.81.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have recently commented on FFIV. Morgan Stanley raised their target price on shares of F5 from $340.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, May 20th. Zacks Research upgraded F5 from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Friday, June 26th. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a research note on Wednesday, April 29th. Barclays raised their price objective on F5 from $292.00 to $386.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, May 29th. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada reaffirmed an “outperform” rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Thursday, July 16th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, five have given a Buy rating, four have assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $382.67.

Insider Transactions at F5

In other F5 news, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 3,783 shares of the company’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 completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 146,989 shares in the company, valued at $49,592,618.71. This represents a 2.51% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, EVP Chad Michael Whalen sold 6,200 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, May 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $350.19, for a total value of $2,171,178.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 20,832 shares in the company, valued at $7,295,158.08. This trade represents a 22.94% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. In the last three months, insiders have sold 22,579 shares of company stock worth $7,836,860. Insiders own 0.48% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. UMB Bank n.a. lifted its stake in shares of F5 by 64.5% during the 4th quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 153 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $39,000 after purchasing an additional 60 shares during the last quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. raised its holdings in F5 by 288.1% in the first quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 163 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $43,000 after purchasing an additional 121 shares in the last quarter. MUFG Securities EMEA plc bought a new position in F5 in the second quarter worth about $50,000. Triumph Capital Management bought a new position in F5 in the third quarter worth about $100,000. Finally, Advisory Services Network LLC purchased a new stake in shares of F5 during the third quarter valued at about $116,000. 90.66% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

F5 News Roundup

Here are the key news stories impacting F5 this week:

• Positive Sentiment: F5 reported adjusted earnings of $4.73 per share, well above the roughly $4.00 consensus estimate, while revenue of $865.1 million exceeded expectations near $834.6 million. Revenue increased 10.9% year over year, and EPS rose from $4.16 in the comparable period. F5 quarterly earnings report
• Positive Sentiment: Product revenue grew 19%, marking eight consecutive quarters of double-digit product growth. Management said F5’s platform is becoming increasingly mission-critical for securing applications and APIs in an AI-driven environment. F5 Reports Third Quarter Results
• Positive Sentiment: F5 raised its fiscal 2026 revenue-growth forecast for the third time this year, citing strong cybersecurity demand. Its full-year EPS outlook of $17.21–$17.33 is above the approximately $15.75 analyst consensus, while projected revenue of about $3.4 billion also exceeds expectations. F5 raises annual revenue growth forecast
• Positive Sentiment: Fourth-quarter guidance was also ahead of forecasts, with EPS of $4.14–$4.26 versus a $3.95 consensus and revenue of $870 million–$890 million versus expectations of $858 million. F5 Fiscal Q3 Earnings and Guidance

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.