Hsbc Holdings PLC Acquires 115,639 Shares of F5, Inc. $FFIV

Hsbc Holdings PLC grew its stake in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) by 24.8% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 581,855 shares of the network technology company’s stock after purchasing an additional 115,639 shares during the quarter. Hsbc Holdings PLC owned about 1.03% of F5 worth $148,580,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the stock. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC increased its holdings in F5 by 3.4% in the fourth quarter. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC now owns 1,190 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $309,000 after purchasing an additional 39 shares during the last quarter. Pacific Sage Partners LLC boosted its holdings in F5 by 0.6% during the fourth quarter. Pacific Sage Partners LLC now owns 7,122 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $1,818,000 after buying an additional 40 shares during the last quarter. Meiji Yasuda Asset Management Co Ltd. boosted its holdings in F5 by 4.4% during the fourth quarter. Meiji Yasuda Asset Management Co Ltd. now owns 968 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $247,000 after buying an additional 41 shares during the last quarter. Coldstream Capital Management Inc. grew its position in shares of F5 by 4.5% during the 3rd quarter. Coldstream Capital Management Inc. now owns 1,047 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $338,000 after buying an additional 45 shares during the period. Finally, FIL Ltd grew its position in shares of F5 by 9.3% during the 4th quarter. FIL Ltd now owns 601 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $153,000 after buying an additional 51 shares during the period. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

FFIV has been the topic of a number of analyst reports. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Wednesday, April 29th. Barclays upped their target price on shares of F5 from $292.00 to $386.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, May 29th. Evercore upgraded shares of 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. Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on shares of F5 from $340.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, May 20th. Finally, Piper Sandler boosted their price target on shares of F5 from $356.00 to $423.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, May 29th. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $382.67.

F5 Stock Performance

Shares of F5 stock opened at $385.49 on Friday. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $357.32 and its 200 day simple moving average is $302.66. F5, Inc. has a 52-week low of $223.76 and a 52-week high of $411.52. The firm has a market cap of $21.75 billion, a PE ratio of 31.62, a P/E/G ratio of 4.52 and a beta of 1.04.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.90 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.47 by $0.43. F5 had a return on equity of 21.50% and a net margin of 21.96%.The firm had revenue of $811.70 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $783.82 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $3.42 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 11.0% compared to the same quarter last year. 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, equities research analysts predict that F5, Inc. will post 12.78 EPS for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, EVP Chad Michael Whalen sold 6,200 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, May 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $350.19, for a total transaction of $2,171,178.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president owned 20,832 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,295,158.08. This represents a 22.94% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CFO Edward Cooper Werner sold 2,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, June 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $400.00, for a total transaction of $1,000,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer directly owned 406 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $162,400. This trade represents a 86.03% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders have sold a total of 22,579 shares of company stock valued at $7,836,860 over the last 90 days. 0.48% of the stock is currently owned by company 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.