Aberdeen Group plc Grows Position in F5, Inc. $FFIV

Aberdeen Group plc lifted its position in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) by 27.3% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 31,889 shares of the network technology company’s stock after purchasing an additional 6,846 shares during the period. Aberdeen Group plc owned about 0.06% of F5 worth $10,306,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

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

Insider Transactions at F5

In related news, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 3,343 shares of F5 stock in a transaction on Monday, January 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $261.87, for a total transaction of $875,431.41. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 8,060 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,110,672.20. The trade was a 29.32% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, Director Alan Higginson sold 1,309 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, December 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $237.11, for a total value of $310,376.99. Following the completion of the sale, the director directly owned 8,610 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,041,517.10. This trade represents a 13.20% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders have sold 19,191 shares of company stock worth $4,951,595 in the last three months. Insiders own 0.48% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms recently issued reports on FFIV. Weiss Ratings cut shares of F5 from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 27th. Barclays lifted their target price on shares of F5 from $267.00 to $283.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 28th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded shares of F5 from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and upped their price target for the stock from $295.00 to $345.00 in a research report on Thursday, January 15th. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their price objective on F5 from $285.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 28th. Finally, Bank of America reduced their target price on F5 from $260.00 to $250.00 and set an “underperform” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, October 28th. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have given a Hold rating and two have issued a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $309.89.

F5 Trading Up 0.5%

Shares of NASDAQ:FFIV opened at $279.19 on Friday. F5, Inc. has a 1-year low of $223.76 and a 1-year high of $346.00. The stock has a market capitalization of $15.78 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.09, a P/E/G ratio of 7.86 and a beta of 1.00. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $268.19 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $284.36.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last posted 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. F5 had a net margin of 22.45% and a return on equity of 22.08%. The business had revenue of $822.47 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $755.97 million. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $3.84 earnings per share. F5’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.3% compared to the same quarter last year. 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, equities analysts predict that F5, Inc. will post 11.2 EPS for the current year.

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.