F5, Inc. $FFIV Stock Bought by VIRGINIA RETIREMENT SYSTEMS ET Al

VIRGINIA RETIREMENT SYSTEMS ET Al lifted its holdings in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) by 342.3% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 13,800 shares of the network technology company’s stock after buying an additional 10,680 shares during the quarter. VIRGINIA RETIREMENT SYSTEMS ET Al’s holdings in F5 were worth $6,143,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. BlackRock Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of F5 during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $2,611,637,000. William Blair Investment Management LLC bought a new position in F5 during the 2nd quarter worth $243,865,000. Hsbc Holdings PLC bought a new position in F5 during the 2nd quarter worth $208,277,000. Legal & General Group Plc acquired a new stake in shares of F5 in the 2nd quarter worth about $205,453,000. Finally, Deutsche Bank AG bought a new stake in F5 in the 2nd quarter valued at about $172,297,000. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

F5 Stock Performance

Shares of FFIV opened at $338.34 on Monday. The company has a 50-day moving average of $428.63 and a two-hundred day moving average of $362.68. The stock has a market cap of $19.16 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.00, a PEG 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, Inc. has a one year low of $223.76 and a one year high of $483.30.

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

F5 announced that its Board of Directors has approved a stock buyback plan on Tuesday, October 27th that permits the company to repurchase $1.50 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization permits the network technology company to buy shares of its stock through open market purchases. Share repurchase plans are generally an indication that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have issued reports on FFIV. Wells Fargo & Company set a $500.00 target price on shares of F5 in a research note on Wednesday. Royal Bank Of Canada lifted their price target on F5 from $525.00 to $540.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 28th. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Tuesday, July 28th. Piper Sandler downgraded 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. Finally, Morgan Stanley boosted their price target on F5 from $415.00 to $448.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 28th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, seven have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average 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 at F5

In other F5 news, insider John Maddison sold 204 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, September 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $406.24, for a total value of $82,872.96. Following the transaction, the insider owned 1,149 shares in the company, valued at $466,769.76. The trade was a 15.08% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale 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 dated 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 transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 146,989 shares in the company, valued at approximately $60,624,143.16. The trade was a 2.51% 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. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 9,620 shares of company stock worth $3,958,962. Corporate insiders own 0.48% of the company’s stock.

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.