F5, Inc. $FFIV Stock Sold by Nippon Life Global Investors Americas Inc.

Nippon Life Global Investors Americas Inc. decreased its stake in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) by 21.9% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 115,800 shares of the network technology company’s stock after selling 32,490 shares during the quarter. F5 makes up 2.1% of Nippon Life Global Investors Americas Inc.’s portfolio, making the stock its 13th biggest holding. Nippon Life Global Investors Americas Inc.’s holdings in F5 were worth $51,552,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. BlackRock Inc. purchased a new position in F5 during the second quarter valued at approximately $2,611,637,000. William Blair Investment Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of F5 in the second quarter worth $243,865,000. Hsbc Holdings PLC bought a new stake in shares of F5 during the 2nd quarter valued at $208,277,000. Legal & General Group Plc bought a new stake in shares of F5 during the 2nd quarter valued at $205,453,000. Finally, Deutsche Bank AG purchased a new position in shares of F5 during the 2nd quarter valued at $172,297,000. Institutional investors own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity at F5

In other F5 news, CTO Michael F. Montoya sold 4,426 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, September 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $410.16, for a total transaction of $1,815,368.16. Following the transaction, the chief technology officer directly owned 1,309 shares in the company, valued at $536,899.44. This trade represents a 77.18% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 3,782 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 5th. The stock was 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 of the company’s stock, valued at $60,624,143.16. This represents a 2.51% decrease in their ownership of the stock. 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 9,620 shares of company stock worth $3,958,962. Insiders own 0.48% of the company’s stock.

Key F5 News

Here are the key news stories impacting F5 this week:

• Positive Sentiment: F5 authorized an additional $1.5 billion share repurchase program, bringing total available buyback capacity to approximately $1.8 billion, or about 9% of its market value. The authorization could support earnings per share and provide demand for the stock following its sell-off. Share Buyback Program Announced by F5
• Positive Sentiment: F5 reported fiscal fourth-quarter revenue of approximately $917 million and adjusted earnings of $4.42 per share, exceeding analyst expectations. AI-related bookings surpassed $100 million and increased roughly 300% year over year, indicating continued demand for AI data-delivery solutions. F5 Beat on Revenue and Still Dropped
• Positive Sentiment: Technical analysts say the stock is now oversold after its recent decline, while upward earnings-estimate revisions could support a potential trend reversal. Morgan Stanley, Barclays and RBC also raised their price targets or maintained a constructive outlook. F5 May See a Trend Reversal
• Positive Sentiment: F5 and Oracle announced a collaboration focused on strengthening application security for AI-era workloads, potentially improving F5’s enterprise and cloud-security opportunities. F5 and Oracle Collaborate

Analysts Set New Price Targets

FFIV has been the subject of several research analyst reports. Weiss Ratings upgraded F5 from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “buy (b)” rating in a research report on Friday, October 9th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on F5 from $500.00 to $515.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 28th. Barclays reaffirmed a “mixed” rating on shares of F5 in a report on Wednesday. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Tuesday, July 28th. Finally, Wall Street Zen raised shares of F5 from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday, August 1st. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, seven have issued a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, F5 presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $443.00.

F5 Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:FFIV opened at $338.34 on Monday. F5, Inc. has a 1 year low of $223.76 and a 1 year high of $483.30. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $428.63 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $362.68. The firm has a market capitalization of $19.16 billion, a PE ratio of 27.00, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.00 and a beta of 1.08. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23, a current ratio of 1.73 and a quick ratio of 1.59.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 27th. The network technology company reported $4.42 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $4.26 by $0.16. The company had revenue of $917.43 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $884.03 million. F5 had a net margin of 21.14% and a return on equity of 21.00%. The firm’s revenue was up 13.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $4.39 EPS. On average, equities analysts predict that F5, Inc. will post 14.19 EPS for the current year.

F5 announced that its board has authorized a stock repurchase plan on Tuesday, October 27th that permits the company to repurchase $1.50 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization permits the network technology company to repurchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are usually an indication that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

F5 Profile

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.