Bank of Nova Scotia Invests $2.88 Million in F5, Inc. $FFIV

Bank of Nova Scotia bought a new position in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) during the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund bought 6,932 shares of the network technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,883,000.

Several other hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in FFIV. Compass Financial Management LLC acquired a new stake in F5 in the second quarter worth about $963,000. Daiichi Life Insurance Co. Ltd. acquired a new stake in F5 in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $7,661,000. Commerce Bank acquired a new stake in F5 in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $1,173,000. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. acquired a new position in F5 during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $2,987,000. Finally, Evolve Private Wealth LLC acquired a new position in F5 during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $224,000. 90.66% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

F5 Stock Up 4.4%

Shares of FFIV stock opened at $399.59 on Thursday. F5, Inc. has a 52-week low of $223.76 and a 52-week high of $435.00. The stock has a market cap of $22.63 billion, a PE ratio of 31.81, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.74 and a beta of 1.03. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $403.65 and a 200-day simple moving average of $350.72.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Monday, July 27th. The network technology company reported $4.73 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $4.00 by $0.73. F5 had a return on equity of 21.54% and a net margin of 21.95%.The company had revenue of $865.08 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $834.60 million. During the same period last year, the business earned $4.16 earnings per share. F5’s quarterly revenue was up 10.9% on a year-over-year basis. F5 has set its Q4 2026 guidance at 4.140-4.260 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 17.210-17.330 EPS. Sell-side analysts anticipate that F5, Inc. will post 13.65 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity

In other F5 news, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 1,208 shares of F5 stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $414.63, for a total value of $500,873.04. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president owned 8,060 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,341,917.80. The trade was a 13.03% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 3,782 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $412.44, for a total transaction of $1,559,848.08. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 146,989 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $60,624,143.16. This trade represents a 2.51% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 15,699 shares of company stock worth $6,316,411. 0.48% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms have recently commented on FFIV. Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on shares of F5 from $380.00 to $415.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 28th. Evercore raised F5 from an “in-line” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $475.00 price objective on the stock in a report on Monday, May 18th. Wall Street Zen upgraded F5 from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Saturday, August 1st. Piper Sandler reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and set a $461.00 target price (up from $423.00) on shares of F5 in a report on Tuesday, July 28th. Finally, Weiss Ratings upgraded F5 from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “buy (b)” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 11th. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $416.62.

F5 Profile

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.