Nisa Investment Advisors LLC Acquires 6,455 Shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV)

Nisa Investment Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) by 22.9% during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 34,686 shares of the network technology company’s stock after purchasing an additional 6,455 shares during the period. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC’s holdings in F5 were worth $8,722,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Wedge Capital Management L L P NC acquired a new position in F5 during the 3rd quarter worth about $61,386,000. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC lifted its position in shares of F5 by 1,681.1% during the third quarter. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC now owns 285,639 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $62,898,000 after purchasing an additional 269,602 shares in the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC grew its stake in shares of F5 by 48.9% during the second quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 652,972 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $111,932,000 after purchasing an additional 214,351 shares during the last quarter. Hotchkis & Wiley Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of F5 by 3.6% in the third quarter. Hotchkis & Wiley Capital Management LLC now owns 5,489,388 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $1,208,763,000 after purchasing an additional 191,020 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Point72 Asset Management L.P. bought a new position in F5 in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $35,090,000. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

F5 Trading Up 0.3 %

FFIV stock opened at $272.91 on Friday. F5, Inc. has a 1-year low of $159.01 and a 1-year high of $273.09. The firm has a market cap of $16.00 billion, a PE ratio of 28.55, a P/E/G ratio of 3.62 and a beta of 1.06. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $255.19 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $223.32.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last released its quarterly earnings data on Monday, October 28th. The network technology company reported $3.67 earnings per share for the quarter, beating 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 business had revenue of $747.00 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $730.43 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $2.76 EPS. F5’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts forecast that F5, Inc. will post 11.01 earnings per share for the current year.

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

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have commented on FFIV. Royal Bank of Canada increased their price objective on F5 from $240.00 to $260.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Friday, January 3rd. Piper Sandler lifted their price objective on F5 from $186.00 to $246.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their target price on shares of F5 from $225.00 to $250.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on shares of F5 from $230.00 to $262.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, December 17th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded shares of F5 from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, one has issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, F5 has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $251.25.

Insider Activity

In related news, Director Alan Higginson sold 825 shares of the business’s 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 sale, the director now directly owns 9,882 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,369,407.14. The trade was a 7.71 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Corporate insiders own 0.58% of the company’s stock.

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.