Zacks Investment Research cut shares of F5 Networks Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note released on Monday morning.
According to Zacks, “F5 Networks Inc. is a leading provider of integrated Internet traffic and content management solutions designed to improve the availability and performance of mission-critical Internet-based servers and applications. The company’s products monitor and manage local and geographically dispersed servers and intelligently direct traffic to the server best able to handle a user’s request. The products are designed to help prevent system failure and provide timely responses to user requests and data flow. “
Other analysts have also issued research reports about the stock. Wunderlich boosted their price objective on shares of F5 Networks from $100.00 to $110.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Thursday, July 21st. DA Davidson boosted their price objective on shares of F5 Networks from $125.34 to $145.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Friday, August 12th. Drexel Hamilton reissued a buy rating and issued a $155.00 price objective (up previously from $145.00) on shares of F5 Networks in a research report on Sunday, July 24th. Oppenheimer Holdings Inc. reissued a hold rating on shares of F5 Networks in a research report on Thursday, July 21st. Finally, Jefferies Group reaffirmed a hold rating and set a $110.00 price target (up from $100.00) on shares of F5 Networks in a research report on Sunday, July 24th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, twenty have issued a hold rating, sixteen have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. F5 Networks has an average rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $120.01.
F5 Networks (NASDAQ:FFIV) traded up 1.20% during mid-day trading on Monday, reaching $143.65. 607,509 shares of the company’s stock traded hands. The firm has a market cap of $9.38 billion, a PE ratio of 26.70 and a beta of 1.38. F5 Networks has a 1-year low of $86.03 and a 1-year high of $143.99. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $126.81 and a 200 day moving average of $119.34.
F5 Networks (NASDAQ:FFIV) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 26th. The network technology company reported $2.11 EPS for the quarter, topping the Zacks’ consensus estimate of $1.94 by $0.17. The business had revenue of $525.30 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $520.45 million. F5 Networks had a net margin of 18.34% and a return on equity of 31.79%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 4.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $1.84 earnings per share. Analysts forecast that F5 Networks will post $8.30 EPS for the current year.
In related news, Director Alan Higginson sold 3,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $137.49, for a total transaction of $412,470.00. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 13,310 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,829,991.90. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CFO Andrew Reinland sold 2,932 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, November 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $135.86, for a total value of $398,341.52. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 17,964 shares in the company, valued at $2,440,589.04. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.28% of the stock is owned by insiders.
Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in FFIV. Bank of Montreal Can acquired a new stake in F5 Networks during the second quarter valued at approximately $118,505,000. Ameriprise Financial Inc. boosted its stake in F5 Networks by 63.7% in the third quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 1,277,648 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $159,248,000 after buying an additional 497,300 shares during the period. Fiera Capital Corp acquired a new stake in F5 Networks during the second quarter valued at approximately $55,841,000. Prudential Financial Inc. boosted its stake in F5 Networks by 364.3% in the third quarter. Prudential Financial Inc. now owns 451,554 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $56,282,000 after buying an additional 354,305 shares during the period. Finally, Panagora Asset Management Inc. boosted its stake in F5 Networks by 75.4% in the first quarter. Panagora Asset Management Inc. now owns 668,952 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $70,809,000 after buying an additional 287,664 shares during the period. 97.50% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.
About F5 Networks
F5 Networks, Inc is the developer and provider of application delivery services. The Company’s core technology is a full-proxy, programmable, software platform called TMOS (Traffic Management Operating System). It helps organizations seamlessly scale cloud, data center, and software-defined networking deployments to successfully deliver applications to anyone, anywhere, at any time.