Point72 Hong Kong Ltd Purchases Shares of 379 F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV)

Point72 Hong Kong Ltd acquired a new stake in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) in the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm acquired 379 shares of the network technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $84,000.

Other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Pacer Advisors Inc. increased its position in shares of F5 by 6,700.2% in the 2nd quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 848,388 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $146,118,000 after purchasing an additional 835,912 shares during the last quarter. Wedge Capital Management L L P NC acquired a new stake in F5 in the third quarter valued at $61,386,000. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in F5 by 1,681.1% during the 3rd quarter. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC now owns 285,639 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $62,898,000 after buying an additional 269,602 shares during the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC boosted its position in shares of F5 by 48.9% during the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 652,972 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $111,932,000 after acquiring an additional 214,351 shares in the last quarter. Finally, American Century Companies Inc. raised its position in shares of F5 by 10.5% during the 2nd quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 1,709,296 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $294,392,000 after acquiring an additional 162,820 shares in the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Transactions at F5

In related news, Director Alan Higginson sold 825 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $239.77, for a total transaction 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 $2,369,407.14. This represents a 7.71 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CFO Francis J. Pelzer sold 600 shares of F5 stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, September 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $217.50, for a total value of $130,500.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 30,425 shares in the company, valued at $6,617,437.50. This represents a 1.93 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 4,475 shares of company stock worth $977,039. Company insiders own 0.58% of the company’s stock.

F5 Stock Down 0.4 %

FFIV opened at $251.13 on Wednesday. F5, Inc. has a 52 week low of $159.01 and a 52 week high of $253.62. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $230.67 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $200.39. The company has a market cap of $14.72 billion, a PE ratio of 26.27, a P/E/G ratio of 3.41 and a beta of 1.06.

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. F5 had a return on equity of 20.80% and a net margin of 20.13%. The business had revenue of $747.00 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $730.43 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $2.76 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that F5, Inc. will post 11.01 EPS for the current fiscal year.

F5 announced that its board has approved a share repurchase plan on Monday, October 28th that allows the company to repurchase $1.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization allows the network technology company to buy up to 7.9% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are typically an indication that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

FFIV has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. StockNews.com raised F5 from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price target on shares of F5 from $225.00 to $250.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. The Goldman Sachs Group upped their price objective on shares of F5 from $212.00 to $241.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their target price on F5 from $205.00 to $240.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. Finally, Piper Sandler upped their target price on F5 from $186.00 to $246.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. 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, F5 has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $233.56.

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.