Point72 Asia Singapore Pte. Ltd. Makes New $475,000 Investment in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV)

Point72 Asia Singapore Pte. Ltd. bought a new stake in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm bought 2,156 shares of the network technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $475,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Chase Investment Counsel Corp purchased a new position in F5 in the third quarter valued at about $4,726,000. Bank of Montreal Can boosted its stake in shares of F5 by 3.9% during the 2nd 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 last quarter. Dai ichi Life Insurance Company Ltd grew its position in shares of F5 by 10.5% during the second quarter. Dai ichi Life Insurance Company Ltd now owns 28,820 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $4,964,000 after buying an additional 2,730 shares in the last quarter. New York State Common Retirement Fund increased its stake in shares of 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 during the last quarter. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp raised its holdings in F5 by 9.6% in the second quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 523,982 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $90,245,000 after acquiring an additional 45,843 shares in the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have weighed in on FFIV. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on shares of F5 from $225.00 to $250.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. StockNews.com raised F5 from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Royal Bank of Canada increased their target price on F5 from $205.00 to $240.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Morgan Stanley boosted their price target on F5 from $215.00 to $230.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group upped their price target on F5 from $212.00 to $241.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. Seven research 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 stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $233.56.

F5 Price Performance

NASDAQ:FFIV opened at $252.14 on Tuesday. F5, Inc. has a 12-month low of $159.01 and a 12-month high of $253.62. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $230.04 and a 200 day simple moving average of $199.84. The firm has a market capitalization of $14.78 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.37, a P/E/G ratio of 3.38 and a beta of 1.05.

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

F5 declared that its board has approved a stock buyback plan on Monday, October 28th that authorizes the company to buyback $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the network technology company to reacquire up to 7.9% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are generally an indication that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling at F5

In other news, CFO Francis J. Pelzer sold 600 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, September 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $217.50, for a total value of $130,500.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 30,425 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $6,617,437.50. This represents a 1.93 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director Alan Higginson sold 1,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, September 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $201.65, for a total value of $201,650.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 10,707 shares in the company, valued at $2,159,066.55. This trade represents a 8.54 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 4,475 shares of company stock worth $977,039. 0.58% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

F5 Company 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.