Summit Global Investments Buys New Stake in F5, Inc. $FFIV

Summit Global Investments purchased a new stake in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm purchased 3,617 shares of the network technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,610,000.

Other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Persistent Asset Partners Ltd bought a new position in shares of F5 in the second quarter worth $36,000. Bell Investment Advisors Inc purchased a new position in F5 during the second quarter worth about $49,000. Elevation Wealth Partners LLC grew its position in F5 by 373.1% during the second quarter. Elevation Wealth Partners LLC now owns 123 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $51,000 after buying an additional 97 shares in the last quarter. Root Financial Partners LLC increased its stake in F5 by 91.4% in the 1st quarter. Root Financial Partners LLC now owns 201 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $58,000 after acquiring an additional 96 shares during the last quarter. Finally, SBI Securities Co. Ltd. increased its stake in F5 by 458.3% in the 3rd quarter. SBI Securities Co. Ltd. now owns 201 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $89,000 after acquiring an additional 165 shares during the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

F5 Stock Performance

Shares of FFIV stock opened at $338.34 on Monday. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $428.63 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $362.68. F5, Inc. has a 12-month low of $223.76 and a 12-month high of $483.30. The company has a quick ratio of 1.59, a current ratio of 1.73 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23. The firm has a market cap of $19.16 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.00, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.00 and a beta of 1.08.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 27th. The network technology company reported $4.42 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $4.26 by $0.16. F5 had a return on equity of 21.00% and a net margin of 21.14%. The firm had revenue of $917.43 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $884.03 million. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $4.39 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 13.2% on a year-over-year basis. Equities analysts anticipate that F5, Inc. will post 14.19 EPS for the current fiscal year.

F5 declared that its board has initiated a stock buyback plan on Tuesday, October 27th that allows the company to repurchase $1.50 billion in shares. This buyback authorization allows the network technology company to purchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are generally a sign that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

Analyst Ratings Changes

FFIV has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. Weiss Ratings raised F5 from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “buy (b)” rating in a report on Friday, October 9th. Morgan Stanley upped their price objective on shares of F5 from $415.00 to $448.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 28th. Piper Sandler downgraded shares of F5 from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $461.00 target price on the stock. in a research note on Wednesday, October 28th. Wolfe Research lowered shares of F5 from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday. Finally, Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Tuesday, July 28th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, seven have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $443.00.

F5 News Roundup

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

Insider Activity

In other F5 news, insider John Maddison sold 204 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, September 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $406.24, for a total transaction of $82,872.96. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 1,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $466,769.76. The trade was a 15.08% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed 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 firm’s stock in a transaction dated 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 owned 146,989 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $60,624,143.16. This trade represents a 2.51% 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. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 9,620 shares of company stock valued at $3,958,962. 0.48% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

F5 Company 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.