1,406 Shares in F5, Inc. $FFIV Bought by Empirical Financial Services LLC d.b.a. Empirical Wealth Management

Empirical Financial Services LLC d.b.a. Empirical Wealth Management acquired a new position in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor acquired 1,406 shares of the network technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $407,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Millennium Management LLC increased its stake in shares of F5 by 166.5% in 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 lifted its position in F5 by 1,281.4% during the 1st quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC now owns 967 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $257,000 after acquiring an additional 897 shares during the period. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. boosted its stake in F5 by 38.4% during the first quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 298,297 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $79,428,000 after acquiring an additional 82,835 shares in the last quarter. Focus Partners Wealth bought a new stake in F5 during the first quarter worth about $257,000. Finally, Geneos Wealth Management Inc. grew its holdings in F5 by 288.1% in the first 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 period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts have weighed in on the stock. Zacks Research raised shares of F5 from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Friday, June 26th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price target on F5 from $355.00 to $365.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 29th. Morgan Stanley upped their price target on F5 from $340.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, May 20th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “buy (b-)” rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Friday, June 26th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a research note on Wednesday, April 29th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, five have issued a Buy rating, four have issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $382.67.

F5 Stock Performance

Shares of FFIV stock opened at $409.10 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $23.08 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.56, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.80 and a beta of 1.03. F5, Inc. has a one year low of $223.76 and a one year high of $435.00. The company’s 50-day moving average is $396.16 and its 200 day moving average is $324.43.

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

Insider Activity at F5

In related news, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 1,328 shares of the business’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 transaction, the executive vice president directly owned 8,060 shares in the company, valued at $2,664,474.80. The trade was a 14.15% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 3,783 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, May 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $337.39, for a total transaction of $1,276,346.37. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 146,989 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $49,592,618.71. The trade was a 2.51% 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. Insiders have sold 22,579 shares of company stock valued at $7,836,860 over the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 0.48% of the company’s stock.

F5 Company 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.