Brandywine Global Investment Management LLC Takes $3.32 Million Position in F5, Inc. $FFIV

Brandywine Global Investment Management LLC acquired a new stake in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund acquired 13,002 shares of the network technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,319,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of FFIV. Barclays PLC raised its holdings in F5 by 51.7% in the 3rd quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 310,368 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $100,308,000 after purchasing an additional 105,738 shares during the period. Norges Bank acquired a new position in F5 in the 4th quarter worth about $205,706,000. Alberta Investment Management Corp raised its holdings in F5 by 173.3% in the 3rd quarter. Alberta Investment Management Corp now owns 8,200 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $2,650,000 after purchasing an additional 5,200 shares during the period. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised its holdings in F5 by 11.5% in the 3rd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 381,350 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $123,249,000 after purchasing an additional 39,445 shares during the period. Finally, HighTower Advisors LLC acquired a new position in F5 in the 3rd quarter worth about $1,571,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

F5 Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:FFIV opened at $390.77 on Thursday. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $344.96 and its 200-day moving average price is $295.60. The firm has a market capitalization of $22.05 billion, a PE ratio of 32.06, a P/E/G ratio of 4.64 and a beta of 1.04. F5, Inc. has a 1 year low of $223.76 and a 1 year high of $411.52.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.90 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.47 by $0.43. The firm had revenue of $811.70 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $783.82 million. F5 had a return on equity of 21.50% and a net margin of 21.96%.The business’s revenue was up 11.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $3.42 earnings per share. F5 has set its Q3 2026 guidance at 3.910-4.030 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 16.250-16.550 EPS. As a group, analysts expect that F5, Inc. will post 12.78 earnings per share for the current year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms recently weighed in on FFIV. Barclays upped their price target on F5 from $292.00 to $386.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, May 29th. Piper Sandler upped their price target on F5 from $356.00 to $423.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, May 29th. Royal Bank Of Canada upped their price target on F5 from $425.00 to $450.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday. Morgan Stanley upped their price target on F5 from $340.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Wednesday, May 20th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a report on Wednesday, April 29th. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, F5 has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $382.67.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, EVP Chad Michael Whalen sold 6,200 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, May 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $350.19, for a total value of $2,171,178.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 20,832 shares in the company, valued at $7,295,158.08. This represents a 22.94% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 1,328 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, May 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $330.58, for a total value of $439,010.24. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president owned 8,060 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,664,474.80. This trade represents a 14.15% 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. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 21,579 shares of company stock valued at $7,437,510. 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.