HighTower Advisors LLC Purchases New Shares in F5, Inc. $FFIV

HighTower Advisors LLC acquired a new position in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm acquired 4,862 shares of the network technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,571,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in F5 in the 2nd quarter worth about $207,492,000. Nordea Investment Management AB boosted its stake in shares of F5 by 217.7% in the third quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 229,591 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $74,142,000 after buying an additional 157,318 shares during the period. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. grew its position in F5 by 503.9% during the third quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 163,525 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $52,850,000 after buying an additional 136,445 shares in the last quarter. Treasurer of the State of North Carolina grew its position in F5 by 223.2% during the second quarter. Treasurer of the State of North Carolina now owns 140,547 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $41,366,000 after buying an additional 97,057 shares in the last quarter. Finally, First Trust Advisors LP increased its stake in F5 by 5.8% during the 2nd quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 1,615,555 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $475,490,000 after acquiring an additional 87,923 shares during the period. 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 recent analyst reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded F5 from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and upped their target price for the company from $295.00 to $345.00 in a research report on Thursday, January 15th. Weiss Ratings cut shares of F5 from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 27th. Wall Street Zen downgraded shares of F5 from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, November 28th. Morgan Stanley dropped their target price on shares of F5 from $336.00 to $296.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, December 17th. Finally, Zacks Research upgraded shares of F5 from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, January 9th. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have issued a Hold rating and two have given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, F5 presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $309.89.

F5 Price Performance

Shares of F5 stock opened at $271.36 on Monday. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $270.02 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $281.86. The firm has a market capitalization of $15.34 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.44, a P/E/G ratio of 7.69 and a beta of 1.01. F5, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $223.76 and a fifty-two week high of $346.00.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, January 27th. The network technology company reported $4.45 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.63 by $0.82. F5 had a return on equity of 22.08% and a net margin of 22.45%.The company had revenue of $822.47 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $755.97 million. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $3.84 EPS. F5’s revenue was up 7.3% compared to the same quarter last year. F5 has set its Q2 2026 guidance at 3.340-3.460 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 15.650-16.050 EPS. On average, analysts expect that F5, Inc. will post 11.2 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at F5

In other news, Director Michael L. Dreyer sold 3,067 shares of F5 stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $282.41, for a total transaction of $866,151.47. Following the sale, the director directly owned 1,309 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $369,674.69. This trade represents a 70.09% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 3,343 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, January 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $261.87, for a total value of $875,431.41. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president directly owned 8,060 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,110,672.20. This represents a 29.32% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Over the last three months, insiders sold 20,508 shares of company stock worth $5,473,043. 0.48% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

About F5

F5 Inc (NASDAQ:FFIV) specializes in application services and delivery networking, helping organizations ensure the availability, performance and security of their applications. The company’s core offerings include advanced load balancing, traffic management and application security solutions designed to optimize user experiences and protect against threats such as distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and web application exploits.

At the heart of F5’s product portfolio is the BIG-IP platform, which provides a suite of software modules for local and global traffic management, secure web application firewalling and DNS service delivery.