Van ECK Associates Corp Trims Stake in F5, Inc. $FFIV

Van ECK Associates Corp lessened its stake in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) by 9.7% during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 12,512 shares of the network technology company’s stock after selling 1,339 shares during the quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp’s holdings in F5 were worth $5,204,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. BlackRock Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of F5 during the second quarter valued at $2,611,637,000. State Street Corp lifted its holdings in F5 by 1.7% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 3,226,326 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $1,042,716,000 after purchasing an additional 53,712 shares in the last quarter. First Trust Advisors LP boosted its stake in shares of F5 by 68.5% during the 4th quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 2,753,652 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $702,897,000 after purchasing an additional 1,119,291 shares during the last quarter. Jericho Capital Asset Management L.P. purchased a new stake in shares of F5 during the fourth quarter worth about $579,699,000. Finally, Invesco Ltd. raised its position in shares of F5 by 7.5% in the fourth quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 1,537,680 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $392,508,000 after buying an additional 106,616 shares during the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

F5 Stock Performance

FFIV opened at $391.08 on Thursday. F5, Inc. has a 1 year low of $223.76 and a 1 year high of $435.00. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $404.89 and its 200 day simple moving average is $355.06. The stock has a market capitalization of $22.15 billion, a PE ratio of 31.14, a P/E/G ratio of 3.87 and a beta of 1.03.

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

Insider Buying and Selling at F5

In other F5 news, CTO Kunal Anand sold 392 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $404.63, for a total transaction of $158,614.96. Following the completion of the sale, the chief technology officer owned 12,586 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,092,673.18. The trade was a 3.02% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 1,208 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $414.63, for a total value of $500,873.04. Following the sale, the executive vice president owned 8,060 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,341,917.80. This represents a 13.03% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 13,199 shares of company stock worth $5,316,411. 0.48% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

FFIV has been the topic of a number of analyst reports. Royal Bank Of Canada restated an “outperform” rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Thursday, July 16th. Morgan Stanley boosted their price target on F5 from $380.00 to $415.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 28th. Barclays raised their price objective on F5 from $386.00 to $397.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 28th. Zacks Research downgraded F5 from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, July 27th. Finally, Wall Street Zen upgraded F5 from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Saturday, August 1st. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, F5 currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $416.62.

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.