F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Sets New 52-Week High – Still a Buy?

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV)’s share price reached a new 52-week high during trading on Wednesday . The stock traded as high as $435.00 and last traded at $428.6250, with a volume of 6809 shares. The stock had previously closed at $431.26.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms have weighed in on FFIV. Morgan Stanley raised their price target on F5 from $340.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Wednesday, May 20th. Zacks Research raised F5 from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Friday, June 26th. Needham & Company LLC restated a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Wednesday, April 29th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “buy (b-)” rating on shares of F5 in a research note on Friday, June 26th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on shares of F5 from $355.00 to $365.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 29th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, five have given a Buy rating, four have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $382.67.

F5 Price Performance

The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $392.28 and a 200-day simple moving average of $321.73. The stock has a market cap of $23.77 billion, a P/E ratio of 34.61, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.94 and a beta of 1.03.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.90 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.47 by $0.43. The firm had revenue of $811.70 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $783.82 million. F5 had a return on equity of 21.50% and a net margin of 21.96%.The company’s revenue was up 11.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $3.42 EPS. F5 has set its Q3 2026 guidance at 3.910-4.030 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 16.250-16.550 EPS. As a group, research analysts expect that F5, Inc. will post 12.78 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at F5

In other F5 news, EVP Chad Michael Whalen sold 6,200 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, May 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $350.19, for a total transaction of $2,171,178.00. Following the transaction, 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 ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 3,783 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, May 5th. The shares were 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 directly owned 146,989 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $49,592,618.71. This trade represents a 2.51% decrease in their position. 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. Over the last three months, insiders sold 22,579 shares of company stock valued at $7,836,860. 0.48% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of F5

Institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Pinnacle Wealth Management Advisory Group LLC boosted its stake in shares of F5 by 2.6% in the first quarter. Pinnacle Wealth Management Advisory Group LLC now owns 1,447 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $419,000 after acquiring an additional 36 shares during the last quarter. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC raised its stake in F5 by 3.4% in the 4th quarter. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC now owns 1,190 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $309,000 after purchasing an additional 39 shares during the last quarter. Pacific Sage Partners LLC raised its stake in F5 by 0.6% in the 4th quarter. Pacific Sage Partners LLC now owns 7,122 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $1,818,000 after purchasing an additional 40 shares during the last quarter. Meiji Yasuda Asset Management Co Ltd. lifted its holdings in F5 by 4.4% in the 4th quarter. Meiji Yasuda Asset Management Co Ltd. now owns 968 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $247,000 after purchasing an additional 41 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Coldstream Capital Management Inc. lifted its holdings in F5 by 4.5% in the 3rd quarter. Coldstream Capital Management Inc. now owns 1,047 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $338,000 after purchasing an additional 45 shares in the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.