F5, Inc. $FFIV Shares Sold by Sterling Capital Management LLC

Sterling Capital Management LLC cut its stake in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) by 6.8% during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 17,027 shares of the network technology company’s stock after selling 1,249 shares during the period. Sterling Capital Management LLC’s holdings in F5 were worth $7,580,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of FFIV. BlackRock Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of F5 in the second quarter valued at about $2,611,637,000. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. lifted its position in shares of F5 by 23.9% during the third quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 732,219 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $325,969,000 after purchasing an additional 141,131 shares in the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC boosted its holdings in F5 by 24.8% during the second quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 726,844 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $302,338,000 after purchasing an additional 144,534 shares during the last quarter. William Blair Investment Management LLC purchased a new position in F5 during the second quarter worth about $243,865,000. Finally, Amundi boosted its holdings in F5 by 96.0% during the second quarter. Amundi now owns 555,809 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $231,194,000 after purchasing an additional 272,273 shares during the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

FFIV has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. Piper Sandler reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and issued a $461.00 price objective (up from $423.00) on shares of F5 in a research report on Tuesday, July 28th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on shares of F5 from $500.00 to $515.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 28th. Zacks Research downgraded F5 from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, July 27th. Wall Street Zen raised F5 from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday, August 1st. Finally, Weiss Ratings raised F5 from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “buy (b)” rating in a research report on Friday, October 9th. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $426.00.

F5 Trading Up 1.2%

Shares of NASDAQ:FFIV traded up $5.34 during midday trading on Friday, reaching $455.42. The company had a trading volume of 622,514 shares, compared to its average volume of 524,552. The stock has a market cap of $25.79 billion, a P/E ratio of 36.26, a P/E/G ratio of 4.26 and a beta of 1.03. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $427.67 and its 200 day moving average price is $395.01. F5, Inc. has a 52-week low of $223.76 and a 52-week high of $483.30.

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

Insider Activity

In other news, CTO Michael Montoya sold 4,426 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, September 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $410.16, for a total transaction of $1,815,368.16. Following the completion of the sale, the chief technology officer owned 1,309 shares in the company, valued at $536,899.44. This trade represents a 77.18% decrease in their position. 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, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 3,782 shares of F5 stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $412.44, for a total transaction of $1,559,848.08. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 146,989 shares in the company, valued at $60,624,143.16. This trade represents a 2.51% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 16,829 shares of company stock worth $6,815,302. 0.48% of the stock is owned by insiders.

About F5

F5, Inc (NASDAQ: FFIV) provides application delivery, security and traffic management solutions for enterprises, service providers and public-sector organizations. Its offerings are designed to help customers secure, optimize and manage applications and application programming interfaces (APIs) across data centers, private and 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.