Fifth Third Bancorp Increases Holdings in F5, Inc. $FFIV

Fifth Third Bancorp raised its stake in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) by 246.4% in the 1st quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 9,917 shares of the network technology company’s stock after buying an additional 7,054 shares during the period. Fifth Third Bancorp’s holdings in F5 were worth $2,869,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Hazlett Burt & Watson Inc. acquired a new position in F5 in the 4th quarter valued at about $26,000. Hantz Financial Services Inc. increased its holdings in shares of F5 by 109.8% during the 4th quarter. Hantz Financial Services Inc. now owns 107 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $27,000 after buying an additional 56 shares during the last quarter. Elyxium Wealth LLC acquired a new stake in shares of F5 during the 4th quarter worth approximately $28,000. SJS Investment Consulting Inc. raised its position in shares of F5 by 963.6% during the 1st quarter. SJS Investment Consulting Inc. now owns 117 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $34,000 after buying an additional 106 shares during the period. Finally, Capital Advisors Ltd. LLC raised its position in shares of F5 by 113.8% during the 1st quarter. Capital Advisors Ltd. LLC now owns 124 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $36,000 after buying an additional 66 shares during the period. 90.66% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling at F5

In other news, CTO Kunal Anand sold 3,123 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, May 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $322.33, for a total value of $1,006,636.59. Following the completion of the sale, the chief technology officer directly owned 12,194 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,930,492.02. This represents a 20.39% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, 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 stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, June 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $400.00, for a total transaction of $1,000,000.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer owned 406 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $162,400. This trade represents a 86.03% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. In the last quarter, insiders sold 22,579 shares of company stock worth $7,836,860. Corporate insiders own 0.48% of the company’s stock.

F5 Stock Up 0.7%

NASDAQ:FFIV opened at $411.92 on Tuesday. F5, Inc. has a 52 week low of $223.76 and a 52 week high of $435.00. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $397.23 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $325.96. The company has a market cap of $23.24 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.79, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.80 and a beta of 1.03.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.90 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.47 by $0.43. F5 had a net margin of 21.96% and a return on equity of 21.50%. The firm had revenue of $811.70 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $783.82 million. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $3.42 earnings per share. The firm’s 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. On average, analysts expect that F5, Inc. will post 12.78 EPS for the current year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

FFIV has been the subject of several analyst reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price objective on F5 from $355.00 to $365.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 29th. Evercore raised F5 from an “in-line” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $475.00 price target on the stock in a research note on Monday, May 18th. Bank of America increased their price target on F5 from $250.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, May 26th. Piper Sandler raised their price objective on F5 from $356.00 to $423.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, May 29th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC restated a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a report on Wednesday, April 29th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, five have issued a Buy rating, four have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $382.67.

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.