F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) EVP Thomas Dean Fountain Sells 9,387 Shares of Company Stock

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) EVP Thomas Fountain sold 9,387 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, November 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $329.74, for a total value of $3,095,269.38. Following the sale, the executive vice president owned 8,060 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,657,704.40. This trade represents a 53.80% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan.

F5 Price Performance

F5 stock opened at $311.74 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $17.65 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.88, a P/E/G ratio of 2.92 and a beta of 1.07. F5, Inc. has a 12-month low of $223.76 and a 12-month high of $483.30. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23, a current ratio of 1.73 and a quick ratio of 1.59. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $423.65 and its two-hundred day moving average is $363.77.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 27th. The network technology company reported $4.42 earnings per share for the quarter, beating 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 business had revenue of $917.43 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $884.03 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $4.39 earnings per share. The company’s revenue was up 13.2% on a year-over-year basis. Equities analysts predict that F5, Inc. will post 14.19 earnings per share for the current year.

F5 declared that its Board of Directors has authorized a share repurchase program on Tuesday, October 27th that allows the company to buy back $1.50 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization allows the network technology company to buy shares of its stock through open market purchases. Share buyback programs are typically an indication that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

FFIV has been the subject of several analyst reports. Wolfe Research lowered F5 from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 29th. Weiss Ratings lowered F5 from a “buy (b)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a research note on Tuesday. Evercore reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of F5 in a research note on Wednesday, October 28th. Wells Fargo & Company set a $500.00 price target on F5 in a report on Wednesday, October 28th. Finally, Zacks Research downgraded shares of F5 from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, July 27th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, seven have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $443.00.

Institutional Trading of F5

Institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Mather Group LLC. increased its position in shares of F5 by 2.5% in the 3rd quarter. Mather Group LLC. now owns 1,365 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $608,000 after purchasing an additional 33 shares during the last quarter. Kesler Norman & Wride LLC lifted its position in shares of F5 by 1.4% during the first quarter. Kesler Norman & Wride LLC now owns 3,718 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $1,076,000 after purchasing an additional 52 shares during the last quarter. MGO One Seven LLC lifted its position in shares of F5 by 2.6% during the third quarter. MGO One Seven LLC now owns 2,056 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $915,000 after purchasing an additional 53 shares during the last quarter. North Dakota State Investment Board lifted its position in shares of F5 by 3.2% during the third quarter. North Dakota State Investment Board now owns 1,733 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $771,000 after purchasing an additional 54 shares during the last quarter. Finally, GraniteShares Advisors LLC grew its stake in F5 by 5.8% in the third quarter. GraniteShares Advisors LLC now owns 1,021 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $455,000 after purchasing an additional 56 shares in the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Key Headlines Impacting F5

Here are the key news stories impacting F5 this week:

• Negative Sentiment: Seven insiders, including F5’s CFO, CTOs and EVPs, sold shares in transactions dated November 3–4. The sales totaled about $7.2 million; several executives reduced their individual holdings substantially. The cluster of sales may weigh on sentiment, although the pre-arranged plans temper the signal. See the SEC filings: Read More., Read More., Read More., Read More., Read More., Read More. and Read More..

About F5

F5, Inc (NASDAQ: FFIV) provides application delivery, security and traffic management solutions for enterprises, service providers and public-sector organizations. Its offerings are designed to help customers secure, optimize and manage applications and application programming interfaces (APIs) across data centers, private and public clouds, and edge environments.

The company’s portfolio includes BIG-IP software and appliances, NGINX application delivery and web server technologies, and F5 Distributed Cloud services.