Kesler Norman & Wride LLC Purchases 2,370 Shares of F5, Inc. $FFIV

Kesler Norman & Wride LLC boosted its position in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) by 182.9% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 3,666 shares of the network technology company’s stock after acquiring an additional 2,370 shares during the quarter. Kesler Norman & Wride LLC’s holdings in F5 were worth $936,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Several other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Pacific Sage Partners LLC lifted its position in F5 by 0.6% during the 4th quarter. Pacific Sage Partners LLC now owns 7,122 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $1,818,000 after acquiring an additional 40 shares during the last quarter. Meiji Yasuda Asset Management Co Ltd. increased its stake in shares of F5 by 4.4% in the fourth quarter. Meiji Yasuda Asset Management Co Ltd. now owns 968 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $247,000 after purchasing an additional 41 shares during the period. Coldstream Capital Management Inc. increased its stake in shares of F5 by 4.5% in the third quarter. Coldstream Capital Management Inc. now owns 1,047 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $338,000 after purchasing an additional 45 shares during the period. Alps Advisors Inc. lifted its position in shares of F5 by 3.8% during the 3rd quarter. Alps Advisors Inc. now owns 1,414 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $457,000 after purchasing an additional 52 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund boosted its stake in F5 by 0.8% during the 4th quarter. Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund now owns 6,569 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $1,677,000 after purchasing an additional 52 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity

In related news, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 3,783 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $337.39, for a total transaction of $1,276,346.37. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 146,989 shares in the company, valued at $49,592,618.71. This trade represents a 2.51% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 1,328 shares of F5 stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $330.58, for a total transaction of $439,010.24. Following the transaction, the executive vice president directly owned 8,060 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,664,474.80. This represents a 14.15% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 22,267 shares of company stock valued at $7,628,120. 0.48% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

F5 Stock Down 0.8%

Shares of FFIV opened at $405.66 on Thursday. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $334.11 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $289.65. The stock has a market cap of $22.89 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.28, a P/E/G ratio of 9.41 and a beta of 1.04. F5, Inc. has a 12 month low of $223.76 and a 12 month high of $411.52.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.90 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.47 by $0.43. The company had revenue of $811.70 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $783.82 million. F5 had a return on equity of 21.50% and a net margin of 21.96%.The company’s revenue was up 11.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $3.42 EPS. F5 has set its Q3 2026 guidance at 3.910-4.030 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 16.250-16.550 EPS. Equities research analysts expect that F5, Inc. will post 12.78 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages have commented on FFIV. Evercore raised F5 from an “in-line” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $475.00 price target on the stock in a research report on Monday, May 18th. Bank of America boosted their target price on shares of F5 from $250.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, May 26th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price target on shares of F5 from $355.00 to $365.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 29th. Morgan Stanley raised their price target on shares of F5 from $340.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, May 20th. Finally, Weiss Ratings upgraded shares of F5 from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a report on Monday, March 30th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, F5 currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $379.89.

About F5

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.