HighTower Advisors LLC Invests $1.57 Million in F5, Inc. $FFIV

HighTower Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The fund acquired 4,862 shares of the network technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,571,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Millennium Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of F5 by 166.5% in the first quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 62,906 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $16,750,000 after purchasing an additional 39,305 shares in the last quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC raised its position in F5 by 1,281.4% in the 1st quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC now owns 967 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $257,000 after buying an additional 897 shares during the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. lifted its stake in F5 by 38.4% in the 1st quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 298,297 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $79,428,000 after acquiring an additional 82,835 shares in the last quarter. Focus Partners Wealth acquired a new position in F5 during the 1st quarter worth approximately $257,000. Finally, Geneos Wealth Management Inc. grew its stake in shares of F5 by 288.1% during the 1st quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 163 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $43,000 after acquiring an additional 121 shares in the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts have recently commented on the stock. Morgan Stanley cut their price objective on shares of F5 from $336.00 to $296.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, December 17th. Wall Street Zen cut shares of F5 from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, November 28th. Royal Bank Of Canada increased their price objective on shares of F5 from $325.00 to $345.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 28th. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their target price on F5 from $285.00 to $320.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 28th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded F5 from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and upped their target price for the stock from $295.00 to $345.00 in a report on Thursday, January 15th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have assigned a Hold rating and two have given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $309.89.

F5 Stock Down 2.2%

Shares of NASDAQ FFIV opened at $271.36 on Monday. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $270.02 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $281.86. The company has a market cap of $15.34 billion, a PE ratio of 22.44, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 7.69 and a beta of 1.01. F5, Inc. has a twelve month low of $223.76 and a twelve month high of $346.00.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, January 27th. The network technology company reported $4.45 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.63 by $0.82. The company had revenue of $822.47 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $755.97 million. F5 had a return on equity of 22.08% and a net margin of 22.45%.The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $3.84 EPS. F5 has set its Q2 2026 guidance at 3.340-3.460 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 15.650-16.050 EPS. As a group, research analysts anticipate that F5, Inc. will post 11.2 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at F5

In related news, Director Alan Higginson sold 1,770 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $275.25, for a total value of $487,192.50. Following the transaction, the director owned 6,840 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,882,710. This represents a 20.56% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 3,343 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, January 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $261.87, for a total transaction of $875,431.41. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president directly owned 8,060 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,110,672.20. This represents a 29.32% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders have sold a total of 20,508 shares of company stock worth $5,473,043 over the last ninety days. Insiders own 0.48% of the company’s stock.

F5 Profile

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.