We recently published a list of 11 Best Performing Cybersecurity Stocks So Far in 2025. In this article, we are going to take a look at where F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) stands against other best performing cybersecurity stocks so far in 2025.

While the Trump administration’s shifting tariff policy, which includes the announcement of steep tariffs followed by a 90-day pause on many import taxes, has prompted some economists to predict a recession within the next year, financial analysts believe the cybersecurity sector could prove to be relatively resilient. Wedbush Securities analysts see cybersecurity as a “defensive” investment that can help investors weather what they call an impending “Category 5 storm.” Another tailwind for the industry comes in the form of increased cyberthreat activities following economic downturns. These add to the momentum of rising cyberattacks expected by analysts for this year.

Although tariffs are projected to have a minimal direct impact on cybersecurity, as most of companies in the industry focus on services rather than physical products, Sonu Shankar, chief product officer of Phosphorus Cybersecurity, an IoT security company, points out that as other industries suffer financial strain and restrict their budgets, spending on security may also face cuts.

As companies go through an increasingly complicated cyber threat landscape, keeping up with developing cybersecurity trends has become critical. According to McKinsey, global spending on cybersecurity products and services hit the $200 billion mark in 2024, a significant increase from $140 billion in 2020, as the number and sophistication of attacks increase. In addition, the cybersecurity industry is expected to grow at an annual rate of 12.4% between 2024 and 2027, surpassing historical growth rates as firms ramp up efforts to combat evolving threats.

Cybersecurity has undoubtedly grown in relevance as more government services and data become digitized, according to Samir Jain, vice president of policy at the Center for Democracy & Technology, a non-profit that promotes digital rights and freedom of speech. Moreover, as cyber attacks become more complex, the demand for trained workers has increased drastically, with cybersecurity companies forecasting that over 3.5 million cybersecurity roles would remain vacant by 2025. As a result, there are calls for broadening recruiting processes to expand the candidate pool.

Our Methodology

For this list, we sifted through financial media reports and identified cybersecurity stocks that were popular among elite hedge funds and favored by analysts. We then checked their year-to-date performance and selected the 11 best performing stocks from our initial pool of 35 popular stocks. The names on this list appear in ascending order of their year-to-date performance, as of April 25.

Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).

A network engineer gazing intently at computer monitors, surrounded by servers and storage systems.

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV)

Year-to-Date performance as of April 25: 6.52%

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 37

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) is a multi-cloud application delivery and security solutions company that offers networking, unified, app management, and security solutions. The company also provides training, maintenance, consultancy, and other technical assistance.

F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) recently announced broad cybersecurity updates to the F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform (ADSP) that significantly boost organizations’ capacity to detect and address vulnerabilities and threats to AI and other modern applications. The F5 ADSP is one of the only platforms that combines high-performance load balancing and traffic management with comprehensive app and API security features.

For the second quarter of fiscal 2025, F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) anticipates non-GAAP earnings per share in the $3.02-$3.14 range. Furthermore, the company expects non-GAAP revenue in the second quarter of fiscal 2025 to be between $705 and $725 million. FFIV’s Product segment performance in the fiscal second quarter is expected to have been supported by rising demand for its software solutions, offset by IT budget cuts amid persistent macroeconomic uncertainty.

Hotchkis & Wiley Large Cap Fundamental Value Fund stated the following regarding F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:

“F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) sells application networking and security software, as well as data center appliances. The company’s stock price rebounded sharply in the second half of the year after reporting a growing pipeline and better close rates in subscription software sales. F5 has no debt, trades at an attractive valuation, and is benefiting from an improving gross margin and lower operating expenses.”

Overall, FFIV ranks 8th on our list of best performing cybersecurity stocks so far in 2025. While we acknowledge the potential for FFIV as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%.  If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than FFIV but trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.

 

READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires.

 

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.