F5 Networks' Stock Leads S&P 500 Losers After Deutsche Bank Turns Bearish

Shares of F5 Networks Inc. slumped 3.4% Wednesday, enough to pace the S&P 500 decliners, after Deutsche Bank turned bearish on the business networking company, citing expectations of slowing product and services revenue growth. Analyst Vijay Bhagavath cut his rating to a rare sell, after being at hold since January 2016. Only 2% of the company's covered by Deutsche Bank analysts are rated sell. Bhagavath slashed his stock price target to $100, which is 30% below current levels, from $120. He believes the deceleration in product and services revenue will result from competition from cloud load balancers and cloud security providers, as well as because of F5's approach to data center load balancing. The stock has lost 1.8% year to date, while the SPDR Technology Select Sector ETF has climbed 10% and the S&P 500 has gained 5.5%.