F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) Shares Acquired by Czech National Bank

Czech National Bank increased its stake in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) by 6.1% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 12,596 shares of the network technology company’s stock after purchasing an additional 723 shares during the quarter. Czech National Bank’s holdings in F5 were worth $3,168,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of FFIV. Diversified Trust Co acquired a new stake in shares of F5 during the 4th quarter worth about $354,000. Oliver Luxxe Assets LLC purchased a new position in F5 in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $312,000. GAMMA Investing LLC raised 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 purchasing an additional 571 shares in the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised its holdings in F5 by 24.7% during the third quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 409,130 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $90,090,000 after purchasing an additional 81,005 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Principal Financial Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of F5 by 1.8% during the 3rd quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 90,002 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $19,818,000 after buying an additional 1,614 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research analysts recently commented on FFIV shares. Barclays increased their target price 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. Piper Sandler lifted their target price on F5 from $186.00 to $246.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. The Goldman Sachs Group upped their target price on F5 from $212.00 to $241.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. Morgan Stanley raised their price target on F5 from $230.00 to $262.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, December 17th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded F5 from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $239.33.

F5 Trading Up 0.6 %

Shares of FFIV opened at $263.86 on Friday. F5, Inc. has a twelve month low of $159.01 and a twelve month high of $266.06. The firm has a market capitalization of $15.47 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.60, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 1.06. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $252.27 and its 200 day simple moving average is $219.65.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last released its quarterly earnings data on Monday, October 28th. The network technology company reported $3.67 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.45 by $0.22. The company had revenue of $747.00 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $730.43 million. F5 had a net margin of 20.13% and a return on equity of 20.80%. F5’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $2.76 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts predict that F5, Inc. will post 11.01 earnings per share for the current 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 shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the network technology company to purchase up to 7.9% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are usually a sign that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Activity

In other F5 news, CFO Francis J. Pelzer sold 600 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $217.67, for a total transaction of $130,602.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 29,825 shares in the company, valued at $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 available through the SEC website. Also, Director Alan Higginson sold 825 shares of the firm’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 transaction of $197,810.25. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 9,882 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,369,407.14. The trade was a 7.71 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders own 0.58% of the company’s stock.

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.