Marshall Wace LLP Makes New $272,000 Investment in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV)

Marshall Wace LLP acquired a new stake in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund acquired 1,082 shares of the network technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $272,000.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of FFIV. Jones Financial Companies Lllp increased its holdings in F5 by 4.3% in the 4th quarter. Jones Financial Companies Lllp now owns 852 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $214,000 after buying an additional 35 shares during the period. AMG National Trust Bank increased its stake in F5 by 0.5% in the fourth quarter. AMG National Trust Bank now owns 7,869 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $1,987,000 after acquiring an additional 37 shares during the period. Tokio Marine Asset Management Co. Ltd. increased its stake in F5 by 2.8% in the fourth quarter. Tokio Marine Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 1,607 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $404,000 after acquiring an additional 44 shares during the period. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC lifted its stake in F5 by 31.8% during the fourth quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 203 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $51,000 after purchasing an additional 49 shares during the period. Finally, HighTower Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in F5 by 5.3% during the fourth quarter. HighTower Advisors LLC now owns 966 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $243,000 after purchasing an additional 49 shares in the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

F5 Price Performance

FFIV stock opened at $268.81 on Monday. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $265.90 and a 200 day moving average price of $262.65. F5, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $164.45 and a fifty-two week high of $313.00. The stock has a market capitalization of $15.50 billion, a PE ratio of 26.72, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.85 and a beta of 1.00.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Monday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.42 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.11 by $0.31. The business had revenue of $590.16 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $719.91 million. F5 had a return on equity of 20.98% and a net margin of 20.58%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $2.91 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts expect that F5, Inc. will post 11.2 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms recently commented on FFIV. Royal Bank of Canada restated a “sector perform” rating and set a $290.00 target price on shares of F5 in a research report on Tuesday, April 29th. Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on F5 from $269.00 to $280.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, April 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their target price on shares of F5 from $296.00 to $285.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, April 17th. William Blair reiterated an “outperform” rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Tuesday, April 29th. Finally, Piper Sandler boosted their price target on shares of F5 from $262.00 to $269.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, April 29th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have issued a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $282.56.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 6,500 shares of F5 stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $303.06, for a total transaction of $1,969,890.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 151,247 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $45,836,915.82. The trade was a 4.12 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, EVP Scot Frazier Rogers sold 3,486 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $293.18, for a total value of $1,022,025.48. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 20,075 shares in the company, valued at $5,885,588.50. The trade was a 14.80 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 13,158 shares of company stock valued at $3,824,964 over the last ninety days. Insiders own 0.52% of the company’s stock.

About F5

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.