F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) Shares Sold by Wedge Capital Management L L P NC

Wedge Capital Management L L P NC cut its position in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) by 3.8% during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 268,235 shares of the network technology company’s stock after selling 10,541 shares during the period. F5 comprises 1.2% of Wedge Capital Management L L P NC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 7th largest position. Wedge Capital Management L L P NC’s holdings in F5 were worth $67,453,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Quest Partners LLC lifted its position in shares of F5 by 9,100.0% during the 2nd quarter. Quest Partners LLC now owns 184 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $32,000 after acquiring an additional 182 shares during the last quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. raised its position in shares of F5 by 7.1% during the second quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. now owns 5,635 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $971,000 after purchasing an additional 375 shares during the period. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of F5 by 21.5% during the second quarter. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. now owns 5,011 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $863,000 after purchasing an additional 887 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its position in shares of F5 by 8.9% in the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 598,605 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $103,096,000 after purchasing an additional 48,742 shares during the period. Finally, Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV increased its stake in F5 by 59.5% in the 2nd quarter. Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV now owns 4,258 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $733,000 after purchasing an additional 1,589 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have commented on FFIV. The Goldman Sachs Group upped their price objective on shares of F5 from $212.00 to $241.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. StockNews.com raised shares of F5 from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. Evercore ISI boosted their target price on shares of F5 from $240.00 to $270.00 and gave the company an “in-line” rating in a research note on Friday. Morgan Stanley increased their target price on F5 from $230.00 to $262.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, December 17th. Finally, Barclays lifted their price target on F5 from $214.00 to $246.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $246.00.

F5 Price Performance

Shares of FFIV stock opened at $263.95 on Friday. F5, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $159.01 and a fifty-two week high of $267.74. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $253.16 and its two-hundred day moving average is $220.60. The firm has a market cap of $15.47 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.61, a PEG ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 1.06.

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

F5 announced that its Board of Directors has authorized a stock repurchase plan on Monday, October 28th that allows the company to buyback $1.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization allows the network technology company to reacquire up to 7.9% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are generally an indication that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, Director Alan Higginson sold 825 shares of F5 stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $239.77, for a total value of $197,810.25. Following the transaction, the director now owns 9,882 shares in the company, valued at $2,369,407.14. This trade represents a 7.71 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CFO Francis J. Pelzer sold 600 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $217.67, for a total transaction of $130,602.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 29,825 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $6,492,007.75. This trade represents a 1.97 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.58% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

About F5

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.