Key Points
- EVP Chad Michael Whalen sold 688 F5 shares on March 6 at an average price of $277.05 for $190,610.40, reducing his stake by 2.55% to 26,329 shares (valued at about $7.29M), per an SEC filing.
- F5 beat expectations for the quarter with $4.45 EPS vs. $3.63 expected and $822.47M in revenue vs. $755.97M expected (revenue up 7.3% YoY), and set Q2 2026 EPS guidance of 3.340–3.460 and FY 2026 guidance of 15.650–16.050.
- Mixed analyst views but heavy institutional ownership: the consensus rating is "Hold" with a $309.89 price target, while institutional investors own about 90.66% of the stock and several large funds significantly increased positions recently.
F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV - Get Free Report) EVP Chad Michael Whalen sold 688 shares of F5 stock in a transaction on Friday, March 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $277.05, for a total transaction of $190,610.40. Following the transaction, the executive vice president owned 26,329 shares in the company, valued at $7,294,449.45. This represents a 2.55% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink.
F5 Price Performance
NASDAQ:FFIV opened at $285.33 on Tuesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $16.13 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.60, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 8.11 and a beta of 1.01. F5, Inc. has a one year low of $223.76 and a one year high of $346.00. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $272.68 and a 200-day moving average price of $280.49.
F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV - Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, January 27th. The network technology company reported $4.45 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $3.63 by $0.82. The company had revenue of $822.47 million for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $755.97 million. F5 had a return on equity of 22.08% and a net margin of 22.45%.F5's revenue for the quarter was up 7.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm earned $3.84 EPS. F5 has set its Q2 2026 guidance at 3.340-3.460 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 15.650-16.050 EPS. On average, equities research analysts expect that F5, Inc. will post 11.2 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.
Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades
A number of research analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Weiss Ratings cut F5 from a "buy (b-)" rating to a "hold (c+)" rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 27th. Zacks Research raised shares of F5 from a "strong sell" rating to a "hold" rating in a report on Friday, January 9th. Morgan Stanley decreased their target price on shares of F5 from $336.00 to $296.00 and set an "equal weight" rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, December 17th. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their price target on shares of F5 from $285.00 to $320.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a report on Wednesday, January 28th. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada increased their price objective on shares of F5 from $325.00 to $345.00 and gave the stock an "outperform" rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 28th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have issued a Hold rating and two have given a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, F5 presently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and a consensus price target of $309.89.
Check Out Our Latest Stock Analysis on FFIV
Institutional Trading of F5
Several institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Jericho Capital Asset Management L.P. bought a new position in F5 in the 4th quarter worth approximately $579,699,000. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. raised its position in shares of F5 by 15,103.5% during the fourth quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. now owns 1,170,216 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $298,709,000 after buying an additional 1,162,519 shares during the last quarter. First Trust Advisors LP lifted its holdings in shares of F5 by 68.5% in the fourth quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 2,753,652 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $702,897,000 after buying an additional 1,119,291 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new position in shares of F5 in the fourth quarter worth $205,706,000. Finally, Deutsche Bank AG boosted its position in shares of F5 by 175.2% during the fourth quarter. Deutsche Bank AG now owns 958,947 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $244,781,000 after acquiring an additional 610,437 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 90.66% of the company's stock.
F5 Company Profile
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Get Free Report)
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.
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