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

Sterling Capital Management LLC lowered its stake in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) by 13.8% during the first quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 21,661 shares of the network technology company’s stock after selling 3,463 shares during the period. Sterling Capital Management LLC’s holdings in F5 were worth $6,267,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of F5 by 1.6% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 7,357,293 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $1,878,023,000 after acquiring an additional 114,533 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its stake in F5 by 1.7% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 3,226,326 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $1,042,716,000 after purchasing an additional 53,712 shares in the last quarter. First Trust Advisors LP increased its stake in 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 valued at $702,897,000 after purchasing an additional 1,119,291 shares in the last quarter. Jericho Capital Asset Management L.P. acquired a new position in F5 during the fourth quarter worth $579,699,000. Finally, Invesco Ltd. raised its holdings in F5 by 7.5% during the fourth quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 1,537,680 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $392,508,000 after purchasing an additional 106,616 shares during the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

F5 Stock Performance

F5 stock opened at $394.53 on Friday. F5, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $223.76 and a fifty-two week high of $411.52. The company has a market capitalization of $22.26 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.37, a PEG ratio of 4.63 and a beta of 1.04. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $366.71 and a two-hundred day moving average of $307.82.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.90 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.47 by $0.43. The business had revenue of $811.70 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $783.82 million. F5 had a return on equity of 21.50% and a net margin of 21.96%.The business’s revenue was up 11.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $3.42 earnings per share. F5 has set its Q3 2026 guidance at 3.910-4.030 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 16.250-16.550 EPS. On average, analysts forecast that F5, Inc. will post 12.78 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

FFIV has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on F5 from $355.00 to $365.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 29th. Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on F5 from $340.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, May 20th. Piper Sandler boosted their price objective on shares of F5 from $356.00 to $423.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, May 29th. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a research note on Wednesday, April 29th. Finally, Weiss Ratings upgraded shares of F5 from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a report on Monday, March 30th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $382.67.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other F5 news, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 3,783 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $337.39, for a total transaction of $1,276,346.37. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 146,989 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $49,592,618.71. This trade represents a 2.51% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CFO Edward Cooper Werner sold 2,500 shares of F5 stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, June 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $400.00, for a total transaction of $1,000,000.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer owned 406 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $162,400. This trade represents a 86.03% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold 22,579 shares of company stock worth $7,836,860 in the last 90 days. 0.48% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

F5 Company Profile

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.