Banque Cantonale Vaudoise Invests $2.59 Million in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV)

Banque Cantonale Vaudoise acquired a new position in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) in the 1st quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund acquired 9,722 shares of the network technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,589,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in FFIV. GAMMA Investing LLC lifted its stake in shares of F5 by 34,698.9% during the first quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 746,089 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $198,661,000 after buying an additional 743,945 shares during the period. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. raised its holdings in shares of F5 by 110.4% during the first quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 560,493 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $149,242,000 after purchasing an additional 294,050 shares during the last quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. raised its holdings in shares of F5 by 659.3% during the first quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 316,992 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $84,405,000 after purchasing an additional 275,244 shares during the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp raised its holdings in shares of F5 by 38.0% during the fourth quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 913,021 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $229,597,000 after purchasing an additional 251,534 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Voya Investment Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of F5 by 400.3% during the fourth quarter. Voya Investment Management LLC now owns 220,291 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $55,397,000 after purchasing an additional 176,260 shares during the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research analysts recently issued reports on FFIV shares. William Blair reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of F5 in a report on Tuesday, April 29th. Wall Street Zen cut shares of F5 from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, May 22nd. Barclays cut their price objective on shares of F5 from $296.00 to $274.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, April 29th. Royal Bank Of Canada reaffirmed a “sector perform” rating and issued a $290.00 price objective on shares of F5 in a report on Tuesday, April 29th. Finally, Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on shares of F5 from $280.00 to $305.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, July 18th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $291.44.

Insider Activity

In related news, Director Alan Higginson sold 1,272 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $286.69, for a total transaction of $364,669.68. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 9,919 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,843,678.11. The trade was a 11.37% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, Director Michael L. Dreyer sold 1,800 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $285.96, for a total transaction of $514,728.00. Following the transaction, the director owned 4,376 shares in the company, valued at $1,251,360.96. The trade was a 29.15% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 8,519 shares of company stock valued at $2,408,594 in the last ninety days. 0.52% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

F5 Stock Down 0.8%

FFIV stock opened at $299.24 on Wednesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $17.19 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.39, a P/E/G ratio of 3.81 and a beta of 1.00. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $293.19 and a 200-day simple moving average of $281.54. F5, Inc. has a 52 week low of $184.80 and a 52 week high of $313.00.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last released its earnings results on Monday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.42 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.11 by $0.31. The business had revenue of $590.16 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $719.91 million. F5 had a net margin of 21.14% and a return on equity of 21.18%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 7.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $2.91 earnings per share. On average, analysts expect that F5, Inc. will post 11.2 earnings per share for the current year.

F5 Company Profile

F5, Inc provides multi-cloud application security and delivery solutions in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific region. The company’s distributed cloud services enable its customers to deploy, secure, and operate applications in any architecture, from on-premises to the public cloud.