F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Releases Quarterly Earnings Results, Beats Estimates By $0.73 EPS

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) announced its quarterly earnings results on Monday. The network technology company reported $4.73 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $4.00 by $0.73, FiscalAI reports. F5 had a net margin of 21.96% and a return on equity of 21.50%. The company had revenue of $865.08 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $834.60 million.

F5 Trading Up 4.0%

FFIV stock traded up $15.75 during trading on Monday, hitting $407.96. The company had a trading volume of 1,527,805 shares, compared to its average volume of 762,641. The stock has a market cap of $23.02 billion, a PE ratio of 33.47, a PEG ratio of 4.60 and a beta of 1.03. The business has a 50-day moving average of $400.23 and a 200-day moving average of $329.84. F5 has a one year low of $223.76 and a one year high of $435.00.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages have recently commented on FFIV. Evercore raised F5 from an “in-line” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $475.00 price target on the stock in a research note on Monday, May 18th. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a report on Wednesday, April 29th. Royal Bank Of Canada reiterated an “outperform” rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Thursday, July 16th. Bank of America boosted their target price on shares of F5 from $250.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, May 26th. Finally, Weiss Ratings restated a “buy (b-)” rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Friday, June 26th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, five have assigned a Buy rating, four have assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $382.67.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other F5 news, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 1,328 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, May 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $330.58, for a total transaction of $439,010.24. Following the sale, the executive vice president owned 8,060 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,664,474.80. This represents a 14.15% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. 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 dated Friday, May 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $350.19, for a total value of $2,171,178.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president owned 20,832 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,295,158.08. The trade was a 22.94% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 22,579 shares of company stock worth $7,836,860. Corporate insiders own 0.48% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On F5

Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in FFIV. Millennium Management LLC increased its holdings in F5 by 166.5% in the first quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 62,906 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $16,750,000 after purchasing an additional 39,305 shares in the last quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of F5 by 1,281.4% during the 1st quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC now owns 967 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $257,000 after buying an additional 897 shares during the period. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. grew its position in shares of F5 by 38.4% during the 1st quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 298,297 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $79,428,000 after buying an additional 82,835 shares during the period. Focus Partners Wealth bought a new stake in shares of F5 in the 1st quarter valued at $257,000. Finally, Geneos Wealth Management Inc. increased its stake in shares of F5 by 288.1% in the 1st quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 163 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $43,000 after acquiring an additional 121 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

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.