Stock Update: F5 Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV)

[Barrons] F5 Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) are up 91 cents, or 0.8%, at $110.01, after Credit Suisse‘s Vlad Rom today initiated coverage of the stock with an Outperform rating, and a $140 price target, two weeks before the company is scheduled to report fiscal Q4 results, on October 29th.Rom calls F5 a “data center gatekeeper,” and “a unique asset levered to both enterprise and consumer application growth.”In general, F5, contends Rom, is levered to an overall rise in spending by IT on deployment of applications, with F5 the leading name for so-called “application delivery controller,” or ADC:Stock PerformanceTaking a look at the company’s recent performance, F5 Networks reported third quarter earnings for fiscal 2014 on July 23^rd. The company reported actual earnings per share of $1.39 against the consensus Street estimate of $1.35. This represents year over year growth of 19.42%. F5 Networks posted revenue of $440.30 million against estimates of $435 million.F5 Networks, Inc. (FFIV) is currently valued at $8.60 billion and closed the last trading session at $112.09. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $122.37 and a 200-day moving average of $112.48.

Is this a Buying Opportunity?There are currently thirty five analysts that we track that cover the stock. Of those thirty five, eighteen have a Buy rating, one have strong Buy rating and sixteen have a hold rating. On a consensus basis this yields a score of 2.57 and a Buy. The combined price objective of these covering analysts is $119.34, which represents a 2.70% downside difference to the last closing price.The most recent analyst activity consisted of Piper Jaffray who boosted price target with overweight stance on the company. Piper Jaffray has a price target of $130 to $140 which represents an upside of 14.15% from the last closing price. On the date of the report, the stock closed at $122.65.Another research firm weighing in recently was Robert W. Baird who downgraded their outperform rating on the stock. On September 29^th Robert W. Baird downgraded their price target on the stock at $125.00, a 4.90% upside to the current price. On the day of the report, F5 Networks shares closed at $119.16.Company ProfileF5 Networks, Inc (NASDAQ:FFIV) develops, markets, and sells application delivery networking products that optimize the security, performance, and availability of network applications, servers, and storage systems. The company offers Local Traffic Manager, which provides intelligent load-balancing and traffic management; Global Traffic Manager that automatically directs users to the closest or best-performing data center; Access Policy Manager, which provides secure, granular, and context-aware access to networks and applications; and Application Security Manager, an application firewall.