Ascent Group LLC Buys New Position in F5, Inc. $FFIV

Ascent Group LLC bought a new stake in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) in the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund bought 1,534 shares of the network technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $408,000.

Several other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Hotchkis & Wiley Capital Management LLC raised its stake in F5 by 6.2% in the 1st quarter. Hotchkis & Wiley Capital Management LLC now owns 5,387,700 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $1,434,583,000 after purchasing an additional 312,415 shares during the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp raised its stake in F5 by 15.5% in the 1st quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 1,054,701 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $280,835,000 after purchasing an additional 141,680 shares during the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC raised its stake in F5 by 37.5% in the 1st quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 828,900 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $216,757,000 after purchasing an additional 226,231 shares during the last quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC raised its stake in F5 by 34,698.9% in the 1st quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 746,089 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $198,661,000 after purchasing an additional 743,945 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its stake in shares of F5 by 0.9% during the 1st quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 656,373 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $174,755,000 after acquiring an additional 5,826 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

FFIV has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. Needham & Company LLC upped their price objective on shares of F5 from $320.00 to $345.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 31st. Wall Street Zen downgraded shares of F5 from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 22nd. Barclays upped their price objective on shares of F5 from $274.00 to $321.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 31st. Wolfe Research initiated coverage on shares of F5 in a research note on Monday, July 7th. They set an “outperform” rating for the company. Finally, Morgan Stanley upped their price objective on shares of F5 from $305.00 to $312.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 31st. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, seven have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, F5 presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $309.89.

Insider Buying and Selling at F5

In other F5 news, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 1,300 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $308.14, for a total value of $400,582.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 110,153 shares in the company, valued at $33,942,545.42. This represents a 1.17% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 1,347 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $309.73, for a total value of $417,206.31. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president owned 20,699 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $6,411,101.27. This represents a 6.11% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 11,945 shares of company stock worth $3,762,365 in the last quarter. Company insiders own 0.52% of the company’s stock.

F5 Stock Performance

FFIV opened at $334.59 on Friday. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $310.54 and a 200 day moving average price of $287.76. The company has a market cap of $19.22 billion, a PE ratio of 29.48, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.77 and a beta of 1.08. F5, Inc. has a 1 year low of $202.68 and a 1 year high of $337.39.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, July 30th. The network technology company reported $4.16 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.49 by $0.67. The firm had revenue of $780.37 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $750.64 million. F5 had a net margin of 22.06% and a return on equity of 21.77%. The company’s revenue was up 12.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $3.36 EPS. F5 has set its FY 2025 guidance at 15.240-15.380 EPS. Q4 2025 guidance at 3.870-3.990 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts predict 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.