F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) EVP Angelique Okeke Sells 1,007 Shares of Stock

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) EVP Angelique Okeke sold 1,007 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $324.06, for a total transaction of $326,328.42. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president owned 2,862 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $927,459.72. This trade represents a 26.03% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan.

F5 Trading Down 5.5%

F5 stock opened at $311.74 on Friday. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $423.65 and a 200 day moving average price of $363.77. F5, Inc. has a 52 week low of $223.76 and a 52 week high of $483.30. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23, a quick ratio of 1.59 and a current ratio of 1.73. The firm has a market capitalization of $17.65 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.88, a P/E/G ratio of 2.92 and a beta of 1.07.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 27th. The network technology company reported $4.42 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $4.26 by $0.16. F5 had a net margin of 21.14% and a return on equity of 21.00%. The firm had revenue of $917.43 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $884.03 million. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $4.39 EPS. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 13.2% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts forecast that F5, Inc. will post 14.19 EPS for the current year.

F5 announced that its Board of Directors has approved a stock buyback program on Tuesday, October 27th that allows the company to repurchase $1.50 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization allows the network technology company to buy shares of its stock through open market purchases. Share repurchase programs are typically an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Evercore reiterated an “outperform” rating on shares of F5 in a report on Wednesday, October 28th. Wall Street Zen raised F5 from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Saturday, August 1st. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a research note on Tuesday, July 28th. Royal Bank Of Canada raised their price objective on F5 from $525.00 to $540.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 28th. Finally, Weiss Ratings cut F5 from a “buy (b)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a research note on Tuesday. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, seven have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $443.00.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On F5

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Maryland State Retirement & Pension System grew its holdings in shares of F5 by 14.0% during the 3rd quarter. Maryland State Retirement & Pension System now owns 3,616 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $1,610,000 after acquiring an additional 443 shares in the last quarter. Ritholtz Wealth Management increased its stake in shares of F5 by 41.8% in the third quarter. Ritholtz Wealth Management now owns 3,735 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $1,663,000 after acquiring an additional 1,101 shares during the last quarter. Jacobi Capital Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of F5 during the third quarter worth $53,000. Machina Capital S.A.S. raised its holdings in shares of F5 by 58.9% during the third quarter. Machina Capital S.A.S. now owns 5,216 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $2,322,000 after acquiring an additional 1,933 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Lido Advisors LLC raised its holdings in shares of F5 by 15.7% during the third quarter. Lido Advisors LLC now owns 6,736 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $2,999,000 after acquiring an additional 914 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

Trending Headlines about F5

Here are the key news stories impacting F5 this week:

• Negative Sentiment: Seven insiders, including F5’s CFO, CTOs and EVPs, sold shares in transactions dated November 3–4. The sales totaled about $7.2 million; several executives reduced their individual holdings substantially. The cluster of sales may weigh on sentiment, although the pre-arranged plans temper the signal. See the SEC filings: Read More., Read More., Read More., Read More., Read More., Read More. and Read More..

About F5

F5, Inc (NASDAQ: FFIV) provides application delivery, security and traffic management solutions for enterprises, service providers and public-sector organizations. Its offerings are designed to help customers secure, optimize and manage applications and application programming interfaces (APIs) across data centers, private and public clouds, and edge environments.

The company’s portfolio includes BIG-IP software and appliances, NGINX application delivery and web server technologies, and F5 Distributed Cloud services.