Wingate Wealth Advisors Inc. Makes New $99,000 Investment in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV)

Wingate Wealth Advisors Inc. bought a new position in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm bought 394 shares of the network technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $99,000.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Hotchkis & Wiley Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in F5 by 3.6% during the 3rd quarter. Hotchkis & Wiley Capital Management LLC now owns 5,489,388 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $1,208,763,000 after buying an additional 191,020 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp grew its holdings in F5 by 0.5% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 3,187,222 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $701,825,000 after buying an additional 16,663 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in F5 by 8.0% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,573,995 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $345,560,000 after buying an additional 117,080 shares in the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. grew its holdings in F5 by 24.7% during the 3rd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 409,130 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $90,090,000 after buying an additional 81,005 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Retirement Systems of Alabama grew its holdings in F5 by 7.7% during the 3rd quarter. Retirement Systems of Alabama now owns 377,387 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $83,101,000 after buying an additional 27,124 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, EVP Chad Michael Whalen sold 4,093 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, February 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $290.33, for a total value of $1,188,320.69. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 27,264 shares in the company, valued at $7,915,557.12. This trade represents a 13.05 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, Director Alan Higginson sold 825 shares of F5 stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $239.77, for a total value of $197,810.25. Following the sale, the director now 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 ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 5,899 shares of company stock worth $1,682,977 over the last three months. 0.52% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts have issued reports on the stock. StockNews.com raised shares of F5 from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their price objective on shares of F5 from $257.00 to $295.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 29th. Morgan Stanley raised their target price on shares of F5 from $262.00 to $310.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 29th. Bank of America raised their target price on shares of F5 from $180.00 to $260.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Finally, Evercore ISI raised their target price on shares of F5 from $240.00 to $270.00 and gave the company an “in-line” rating in a report on Friday, January 17th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have issued a hold rating, one has issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $295.00.

F5 Stock Up 0.6 %

Shares of FFIV opened at $308.35 on Tuesday. The company has a market cap of $17.89 billion, a PE ratio of 30.65, a P/E/G ratio of 3.90 and a beta of 1.06. The business has a fifty day moving average of $266.60 and a 200 day moving average of $234.01. F5, Inc. has a 52-week low of $159.01 and a 52-week high of $310.78.

F5 announced that its board has authorized a stock repurchase program on Monday, October 28th that allows the company to buyback $1.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization allows the network technology company to purchase up to 7.9% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are usually an indication that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

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.