VIRGINIA RETIREMENT SYSTEMS ET Al Takes Position in F5, Inc. $FFIV

VIRGINIA RETIREMENT SYSTEMS ET Al bought a new position in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor bought 3,120 shares of the network technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,298,000.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. California State Teachers Retirement System grew its stake in shares of F5 by 37,969.9% during the second quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System now owns 36,897,316 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $15,347,808,000 after buying an additional 36,800,396 shares during the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of F5 in the second quarter valued at about $2,611,637,000. Jericho Capital Asset Management L.P. acquired a new stake in F5 during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $579,699,000. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. raised its stake in F5 by 15,103.5% during the fourth quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. now owns 1,170,216 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $298,709,000 after buying an additional 1,162,519 shares during the last quarter. Finally, First Trust Advisors LP raised its position in shares of F5 by 68.5% in the 4th quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 2,753,652 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $702,897,000 after acquiring an additional 1,119,291 shares in the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

F5 Stock Up 3.3%

Shares of F5 stock opened at $411.71 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $23.32 billion, a PE ratio of 32.78, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.02 and a beta of 1.03. F5, Inc. has a 52 week low of $223.76 and a 52 week high of $435.00. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $403.49 and a 200-day moving average price of $360.44.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last posted its earnings results on Monday, July 27th. The network technology company reported $4.73 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $4.00 by $0.73. F5 had a return on equity of 21.54% and a net margin of 21.95%.The company had revenue of $865.08 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $834.60 million. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $4.16 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 10.9% on a year-over-year basis. F5 has set its Q4 2026 guidance at 4.140-4.260 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 17.210-17.330 EPS. As a group, research analysts anticipate that F5, Inc. will post 13.65 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Evercore upgraded shares of F5 from an “in-line” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $475.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Monday, May 18th. Wall Street Zen upgraded F5 from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday, August 1st. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a report on Tuesday, July 28th. Weiss Ratings raised shares of F5 from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “buy (b)” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 11th. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Thursday, July 16th. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have issued a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, F5 presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $416.62.

Insider Buying and Selling at F5

In other news, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 3,782 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $412.44, for a total value of $1,559,848.08. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 146,989 shares in the company, valued at $60,624,143.16. This represents a 2.51% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, EVP Chad Whalen sold 703 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $404.86, for a total transaction of $284,616.58. Following the transaction, the executive vice president directly owned 21,536 shares in the company, valued at $8,719,064.96. The trade was a 3.16% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. In the last quarter, insiders sold 12,199 shares of company stock worth $4,917,061. 0.48% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

F5 Company Profile

F5, Inc is a technology company that provides application delivery, security and traffic-management solutions for enterprises, service providers and government organizations. Its offerings are designed to help customers ensure the availability, performance and security of applications across on-premises data centers, public clouds and edge environments.

The company’s portfolio includes BIG-IP software and appliances, NGINX application delivery and web server technologies, and F5 Distributed Cloud Services.