F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) Given New $386.00 Price Target at Barclays

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) had its price target raised by stock analysts at Barclays from $292.00 to $386.00 in a research note issued to investors on Friday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage presently has an “equal weight” rating on the network technology company’s stock. Barclays‘s price target would suggest a potential upside of 0.67% from the stock’s current price.

A number of other research analysts have also recently issued reports on FFIV. Piper Sandler lifted their target price on shares of F5 from $356.00 to $423.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday. 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 note on Wednesday, April 29th. Bank of America lifted their target price on shares of F5 from $250.00 to $300.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research note on Tuesday. Weiss Ratings raised F5 from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a report on Monday, March 30th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC restated a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Wednesday, April 29th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $379.89.

F5 Trading Up 0.0%

FFIV stock traded up $0.02 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $383.45. The stock had a trading volume of 1,651,156 shares, compared to its average volume of 830,995. The firm has a market capitalization of $21.63 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.46, a P/E/G ratio of 8.92 and a beta of 1.00. F5 has a 52 week low of $223.76 and a 52 week high of $399.59. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $325.16 and a 200 day simple moving average of $285.18.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.90 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.47 by $0.43. The firm had revenue of $811.70 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $783.82 million. F5 had a net margin of 21.96% and a return on equity of 21.50%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $3.42 earnings per share. F5 has set its Q3 2026 guidance at 3.910-4.030 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 16.250-16.550 EPS. On average, equities analysts forecast that F5 will post 12.79 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity

In other news, CTO Kunal Anand sold 3,123 shares of F5 stock in a transaction on Monday, May 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $322.33, for a total transaction of $1,006,636.59. Following the completion of the sale, the chief technology officer owned 12,194 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,930,492.02. This trade represents a 20.39% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 1,328 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 transaction, 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. 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 24,491 shares of company stock valued at $7,966,227. Company insiders own 0.48% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On F5

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in FFIV. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in F5 by 1.6% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 7,357,293 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $1,878,023,000 after purchasing an additional 114,533 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its stake in shares of F5 by 1.7% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 3,226,326 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $1,042,716,000 after buying an additional 53,712 shares during the period. First Trust Advisors LP increased its holdings in F5 by 68.5% during the 4th quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 2,753,652 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $702,897,000 after purchasing an additional 1,119,291 shares during the period. Jericho Capital Asset Management L.P. purchased a new position in F5 during the 4th quarter valued at about $579,699,000. Finally, Invesco Ltd. increased its position in F5 by 7.5% during the 4th quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 1,537,680 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $392,508,000 after purchasing an additional 106,616 shares during the period. 90.66% of the stock is 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.