1,933 F5, Inc. $FFIV Shares Bought by Machina Capital S.A.S.

Machina Capital S.A.S. grew its stake in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) by 58.9% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 5,216 shares of the network technology company’s stock after purchasing an additional 1,933 shares during the period. Machina Capital S.A.S.’s holdings in F5 were worth $2,322,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the stock. Persistent Asset Partners Ltd purchased a new position in shares of F5 in the 2nd quarter valued at about $36,000. Bell Investment Advisors Inc acquired a new stake in shares of F5 in the second quarter valued at about $49,000. Elevation Wealth Partners LLC lifted its stake in shares of F5 by 373.1% in the second quarter. Elevation Wealth Partners LLC now owns 123 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $51,000 after purchasing an additional 97 shares during the period. CoreCap Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in F5 by 2,800.0% during the second quarter. CoreCap Advisors LLC now owns 203 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $84,000 after buying an additional 196 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Caitlin John LLC purchased a new stake in F5 during the second quarter worth about $88,000. 90.66% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

F5 Stock Up 0.9%

F5 stock opened at $320.01 on Thursday. F5, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $223.76 and a fifty-two week high of $483.30. The firm has a market capitalization of $18.12 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.54, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.81 and a beta of 1.07. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $416.83 and its two-hundred day moving average is $364.89. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23, a quick ratio of 1.59 and a current ratio of 1.73.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 27th. The network technology company reported $4.42 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $4.26 by $0.16. The business had revenue of $917.43 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $884.03 million. F5 had a net margin of 21.14% and a return on equity of 21.00%. The company’s revenue was up 13.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company posted $4.39 EPS. Analysts predict that F5, Inc. will post 14.19 EPS for the current fiscal year.

F5 declared that its board has approved a stock repurchase plan on Tuesday, October 27th that authorizes the company to buy back $1.50 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the network technology company to purchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Share repurchase plans are usually an indication that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, EVP Chad Whalen sold 6,950 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $329.56, for a total transaction of $2,290,442.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president owned 25,467 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $8,392,904.52. This represents a 21.44% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CTO Michael F. Montoya sold 4,426 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, September 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $410.16, for a total value of $1,815,368.16. Following the sale, the chief technology officer owned 1,309 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $536,899.44. The trade was a 77.18% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold a total of 30,261 shares of company stock worth $10,263,863 in the last three months. 0.48% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have weighed in on FFIV. Needham & Company LLC restated a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Tuesday, July 28th. Wall Street Zen raised shares of F5 from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday, August 1st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price target on shares of F5 from $500.00 to $515.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 28th. Weiss Ratings downgraded shares of F5 from a “buy (b)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a research report on Tuesday, November 3rd. Finally, Wolfe Research lowered F5 from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 29th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, seven have issued a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, F5 currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $443.00.

F5 Company Profile

F5, Inc. provides application delivery and security solutions that help organizations manage, protect and optimize applications across data centers, public clouds and edge environments. Its offerings serve businesses, government agencies and service providers around the world. The company’s products and services include BIG-IP application delivery and security software, NGINX technologies for application development and delivery, and F5 Distributed Cloud Services. These offerings support functions such as traffic management, web and API protection, application security and multicloud connectivity.