Assenagon Asset Management S.A. Raises Holdings in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV)

Assenagon Asset Management S.A. increased its position in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) by 34.4% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 170,905 shares of the network technology company’s stock after buying an additional 43,782 shares during the period. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. owned about 0.29% of F5 worth $42,977,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Chase Investment Counsel Corp purchased a new position in F5 during the 3rd quarter valued at about $4,726,000. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted its stake in shares of F5 by 24.7% during the third quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 409,130 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $90,090,000 after purchasing an additional 81,005 shares in the last quarter. Bank of Montreal Can increased its holdings in F5 by 3.9% during the second quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 308,159 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $53,247,000 after buying an additional 11,525 shares during the period. New York State Common Retirement Fund raised its stake in F5 by 14.3% in the third quarter. New York State Common Retirement Fund now owns 70,536 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $15,532,000 after buying an additional 8,800 shares in the last quarter. Finally, GAMMA Investing LLC lifted its holdings in F5 by 36.3% during the fourth quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 2,144 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $539,000 after buying an additional 571 shares during the period. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other F5 news, CFO Francis J. Pelzer sold 600 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $217.67, for a total transaction of $130,602.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 29,825 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $6,492,007.75. This trade represents a 1.97 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, Director Alan Higginson sold 825 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $239.77, for a total value of $197,810.25. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 9,882 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,369,407.14. This trade represents a 7.71 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.58% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

FFIV has been the subject of several recent research reports. Piper Sandler boosted their price target on F5 from $186.00 to $246.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. Barclays increased their price target on shares of F5 from $214.00 to $246.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their price objective on shares of F5 from $212.00 to $241.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. Royal Bank of Canada increased their target price on shares of F5 from $240.00 to $260.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Friday, January 3rd. Finally, Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on shares of F5 from $230.00 to $262.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, December 17th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $239.33.

F5 Price Performance

Shares of FFIV stock opened at $263.86 on Friday. The business has a fifty day moving average of $252.27 and a 200 day moving average of $219.65. F5, Inc. has a 1 year low of $159.01 and a 1 year high of $266.06. The firm has a market capitalization of $15.47 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.60, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 1.06.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last released its earnings results on Monday, October 28th. The network technology company reported $3.67 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.45 by $0.22. F5 had a return on equity of 20.80% and a net margin of 20.13%. The firm had revenue of $747.00 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $730.43 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $2.76 earnings per share. The company’s revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts expect that F5, Inc. will post 11.01 earnings per share for the current year.

F5 declared that its board has initiated a stock repurchase plan on Monday, October 28th that permits the company to repurchase $1.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization permits the network technology company to repurchase up to 7.9% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are generally an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

F5 Profile

F5, Inc provides multi-cloud application security and delivery solutions in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific region. The company’s distributed cloud services enable its customers to deploy, secure, and operate applications in any architecture, from on-premises to the public cloud.