Friedenthal Financial Makes New Investment in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV)

Friedenthal Financial bought a new stake in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund bought 198 shares of the network technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $50,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the business. Empirical Finance LLC boosted its holdings in F5 by 2.3% in the 3rd quarter. Empirical Finance LLC now owns 2,049 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $451,000 after purchasing an additional 46 shares during the period. Captrust Financial Advisors boosted its stake in shares of F5 by 2.0% in the third quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 2,598 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $572,000 after buying an additional 50 shares during the period. First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. grew its position in F5 by 2.9% during the third quarter. First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. now owns 2,030 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $447,000 after buying an additional 58 shares in the last quarter. Profund Advisors LLC increased its stake in F5 by 6.3% during the 2nd quarter. Profund Advisors LLC now owns 1,185 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $204,000 after acquiring an additional 70 shares during the period. Finally, Commerce Bank lifted its position in shares of F5 by 3.2% during the 3rd quarter. Commerce Bank now owns 2,485 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $547,000 after acquiring an additional 78 shares during the period. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

F5 Stock Up 0.3 %

Shares of NASDAQ FFIV opened at $255.16 on Tuesday. The company has a market capitalization of $14.96 billion, a PE ratio of 26.69, a P/E/G ratio of 3.54 and a beta of 1.06. F5, Inc. has a twelve month low of $159.01 and a twelve month high of $264.50. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $251.32 and a 200 day simple moving average of $218.75.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Monday, October 28th. The network technology company reported $3.67 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.45 by $0.22. F5 had a return on equity of 20.80% and a net margin of 20.13%. The firm had revenue of $747.00 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $730.43 million. During the same period last year, the company posted $2.76 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts expect that F5, Inc. will post 11.01 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

F5 announced that its board has approved a stock buyback plan on Monday, October 28th that permits the company to buyback $1.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization permits the network technology company to buy up to 7.9% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are usually an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling at F5

In other news, Director Alan Higginson sold 825 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $239.77, for a total transaction of $197,810.25. Following the transaction, the director now owns 9,882 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,369,407.14. This represents a 7.71 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CFO Francis J. Pelzer sold 600 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $217.67, for a total value of $130,602.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 29,825 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $6,492,007.75. The trade was a 1.97 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders own 0.58% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

FFIV has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price target on F5 from $225.00 to $250.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. Barclays upped their price objective on F5 from $214.00 to $246.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their target price on F5 from $212.00 to $241.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. StockNews.com raised shares of F5 from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada increased their price objective on shares of F5 from $240.00 to $260.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 3rd. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $239.33.

F5 Profile

F5, Inc provides multi-cloud application security and delivery solutions in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific region. The company’s distributed cloud services enable its customers to deploy, secure, and operate applications in any architecture, from on-premises to the public cloud.