Venturi Wealth Management LLC Increases Stock Position in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV)

Venturi Wealth Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) by 79.1% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 573 shares of the network technology company’s stock after acquiring an additional 253 shares during the period. Venturi Wealth Management LLC’s holdings in F5 were worth $144,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the business. Tokio Marine Asset Management Co. Ltd. grew its position in shares of F5 by 2.8% during the fourth quarter. Tokio Marine Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 1,607 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $404,000 after acquiring an additional 44 shares during the last quarter. Empirical Finance LLC grew its position in shares of F5 by 2.3% during the third quarter. Empirical Finance LLC now owns 2,049 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $451,000 after acquiring an additional 46 shares during the last quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors grew its position in shares of F5 by 2.0% during the third quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 2,598 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $572,000 after acquiring an additional 50 shares during the last quarter. First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. grew its position in shares of 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 acquiring an additional 58 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Greenleaf Trust grew its position in shares of F5 by 5.7% during the fourth quarter. Greenleaf Trust now owns 1,091 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $274,000 after acquiring an additional 59 shares during the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms recently weighed in on FFIV. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective 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. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their price objective on shares of F5 from $257.00 to $295.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 29th. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their target price on shares of F5 from $260.00 to $310.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 29th. Barclays boosted their target price on shares of F5 from $246.00 to $296.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 29th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC boosted their target price on shares of F5 from $285.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 29th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating, one has issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, F5 presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $295.00.

F5 Stock Down 3.0 %

F5 stock opened at $295.56 on Friday. F5, Inc. has a 52 week low of $159.01 and a 52 week high of $313.00. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $275.62 and its 200 day simple moving average is $241.08. The firm has a market capitalization of $17.04 billion, a PE ratio of 29.38, a P/E/G ratio of 3.85 and a beta of 1.06.

F5 declared that its board has initiated a share buyback 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 purchase up to 7.9% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are generally an indication that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other F5 news, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 6,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $303.06, for a total value of $1,969,890.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 151,247 shares in the company, valued at approximately $45,836,915.82. This represents a 4.12 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, Director Marianne Budnik sold 728 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $304.45, for a total transaction of $221,639.60. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 1,770 shares in the company, valued at approximately $538,876.50. This trade represents a 29.14 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 11,574 shares of company stock worth $3,455,057 in the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.52% of the company’s stock.

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.