Janus Henderson Group PLC Buys 900 Shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV)

Janus Henderson Group PLC lifted its position in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) by 17.3% during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 6,092 shares of the network technology company’s stock after purchasing an additional 900 shares during the quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC’s holdings in F5 were worth $1,341,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in FFIV. Pacer Advisors Inc. raised its stake in shares of F5 by 6,700.2% in the second quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 848,388 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $146,118,000 after acquiring an additional 835,912 shares during the last quarter. Wedge Capital Management L L P NC bought a new position in F5 in the 3rd quarter valued at $61,386,000. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in F5 by 1,681.1% in the third quarter. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC now owns 285,639 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $62,898,000 after purchasing an additional 269,602 shares in the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of F5 by 48.9% during the second quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 652,972 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $111,932,000 after purchasing an additional 214,351 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Hotchkis & Wiley Capital Management LLC increased its stake in shares of F5 by 3.6% in the third 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. 90.66% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insider Transactions at F5

In related news, CFO Francis J. Pelzer sold 600 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, September 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $217.50, for a total transaction of $130,500.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 30,425 shares in the company, valued at approximately $6,617,437.50. This trade represents a 1.93 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, Director Alan Higginson sold 825 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 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. Insiders sold 3,475 shares of company stock valued at $775,389 over the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 0.58% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages have commented on FFIV. Barclays increased their price objective on shares of F5 from $214.00 to $246.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Royal Bank of Canada increased their price objective on F5 from $205.00 to $240.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their target price on F5 from $212.00 to $241.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price target on F5 from $225.00 to $250.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Finally, StockNews.com raised F5 from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a 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 stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $233.56.

F5 Trading Up 0.1 %

Shares of F5 stock opened at $261.81 on Friday. F5, Inc. has a 12 month low of $159.01 and a 12 month high of $264.50. The company has a market capitalization of $15.35 billion, a PE ratio of 27.39, a PEG ratio of 3.52 and a beta of 1.06. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $237.40 and its 200 day simple moving average is $205.33.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Monday, October 28th. The network technology company reported $3.67 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating 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 return on equity of 20.80% and a net margin of 20.13%. F5’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $2.76 EPS. Analysts predict that F5, Inc. will post 11.01 EPS for the current fiscal year.

F5 declared that its board has authorized a stock buyback program 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 programs are generally a sign that the company’s leadership believes its shares are 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.