First Trust Advisors LP Raises Holdings in F5, Inc. $FFIV

First Trust Advisors LP lifted its position in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) by 1.2% during the third quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 1,634,361 shares of the network technology company’s stock after purchasing an additional 18,806 shares during the period. First Trust Advisors LP’s holdings in F5 were worth $528,209,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in FFIV. Abich Financial Wealth Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of F5 during the third quarter worth approximately $37,000. CYBER HORNET ETFs LLC purchased a new stake in F5 in the 2nd quarter valued at $45,000. Root Financial Partners LLC acquired a new stake in F5 during the 3rd quarter worth $49,000. SJS Investment Consulting Inc. boosted its stake in F5 by 2,128.6% during the 3rd quarter. SJS Investment Consulting Inc. now owns 156 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $50,000 after purchasing an additional 149 shares during the period. Finally, Geneos Wealth Management Inc. grew its position in 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 purchasing an additional 121 shares during the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

F5 Stock Up 0.9%

Shares of NASDAQ FFIV opened at $286.22 on Friday. F5, Inc. has a 52 week low of $223.76 and a 52 week high of $346.00. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $272.16 and a 200 day moving average price of $281.18. The stock has a market capitalization of $16.18 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.67, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 8.03 and a beta of 1.01.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, January 27th. The network technology company reported $4.45 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.63 by $0.82. The business had revenue of $822.47 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $755.97 million. F5 had a return on equity of 22.08% and a net margin of 22.45%.The company’s revenue was up 7.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm 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. Equities research analysts expect that F5, Inc. will post 11.2 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms have commented on FFIV. Weiss Ratings lowered shares of F5 from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 27th. Royal Bank Of Canada raised their price target on F5 from $325.00 to $345.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 28th. Morgan Stanley dropped their price target on F5 from $336.00 to $296.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, December 17th. Zacks Research raised F5 from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, January 9th. Finally, Barclays increased their price objective on F5 from $267.00 to $283.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 28th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have given a Hold rating and two have given a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, F5 currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $309.89.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other F5 news, CTO Kunal Anand sold 377 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $278.32, for a total transaction of $104,926.64. Following the sale, the chief technology officer owned 8,971 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,496,808.72. This represents a 4.03% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director Michael L. Dreyer sold 3,067 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, February 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $282.41, for a total value of $866,151.47. Following the completion of the sale, the director owned 1,309 shares in the company, valued at $369,674.69. This represents a 70.09% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 23,923 shares of company stock valued at $6,500,773. Corporate insiders own 0.48% of the company’s stock.

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.