Cookson Peirce & Co. Inc. Takes Position in F5, Inc. $FFIV

Cookson Peirce & Co. Inc. acquired a new stake in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm acquired 6,147 shares of the network technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,557,000.

Other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. BlackRock Inc. acquired a new position in F5 in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $2,611,637,000. Jericho Capital Asset Management L.P. acquired a new position in shares of F5 during the fourth quarter worth $579,699,000. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. lifted its holdings in shares of F5 by 15,103.5% during the fourth quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. now owns 1,170,216 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $298,709,000 after purchasing an additional 1,162,519 shares during the period. First Trust Advisors LP grew its stake in shares of F5 by 68.5% in the fourth quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 2,753,652 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $702,897,000 after purchasing an additional 1,119,291 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of F5 in the fourth quarter worth $205,706,000. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

FFIV has been the topic of several recent research reports. Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a report on Tuesday, July 28th. Zacks Research downgraded F5 from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, July 27th. Wall Street Zen raised F5 from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Saturday, August 1st. Evercore upgraded F5 from an “in-line” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $475.00 target price on the stock in a report on Monday, May 18th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price 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. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, F5 currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $416.62.

F5 Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:FFIV opened at $394.24 on Friday. F5, Inc. has a 1 year low of $223.76 and a 1 year high of $435.00. The business’s 50-day moving average is $404.32 and its 200-day moving average is $351.96. The company has a market capitalization of $22.33 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.39, a P/E/G ratio of 3.85 and a beta of 1.03.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last released its earnings results on Monday, July 27th. The network technology company reported $4.73 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $4.00 by $0.73. The business had revenue of $865.08 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $834.60 million. F5 had a return on equity of 21.54% and a net margin of 21.95%.The firm’s revenue was up 10.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $4.16 earnings per share. F5 has set its Q4 2026 guidance at 4.140-4.260 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 17.210-17.330 EPS. Analysts anticipate that F5, Inc. will post 13.65 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity at F5

In related news, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 3,782 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $412.44, for a total transaction of $1,559,848.08. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 146,989 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $60,624,143.16. This represents a 2.51% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, Director Nikhil Ramesh Mehta sold 4,000 shares of F5 stock in a transaction on Thursday, July 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $388.95, for a total transaction of $1,555,800.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director directly owned 7,043 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,739,374.85. This trade represents a 36.22% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold 15,699 shares of company stock worth $6,316,411 over the last ninety days. 0.48% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

About F5

F5 Inc (NASDAQ:FFIV) specializes in application services and delivery networking, helping organizations ensure the availability, performance and security of their applications. The company’s core offerings include advanced load balancing, traffic management and application security solutions designed to optimize user experiences and protect against threats such as distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and web application exploits.

At the heart of F5’s product portfolio is the BIG-IP platform, which provides a suite of software modules for local and global traffic management, secure web application firewalling and DNS service delivery.