23,782 Shares of F5, Inc. $FFIV Bought by Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd.

Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. acquired a new stake in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund acquired 23,782 shares of the network technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $10,587,000.

Other large investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. BlackRock Inc. acquired a new stake in F5 during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $2,611,637,000. William Blair Investment Management LLC bought a new position in F5 in the second quarter valued at approximately $243,865,000. Hsbc Holdings PLC acquired a new position in shares of F5 in the second quarter valued at approximately $208,277,000. Legal & General Group Plc acquired a new position in shares of F5 in the second quarter valued at approximately $205,453,000. Finally, Deutsche Bank AG bought a new stake in shares of F5 during the second quarter worth $172,297,000. 90.66% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CTO Michael Montoya sold 4,426 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, September 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $410.16, for a total value of $1,815,368.16. Following the sale, the chief technology officer owned 1,309 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $536,899.44. The trade was a 77.18% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, insider John Maddison sold 204 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, September 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $406.24, for a total transaction of $82,872.96. Following the transaction, the insider owned 1,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $466,769.76. The trade was a 15.08% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders own 0.48% of the company’s stock.

F5 Trading Down 0.4%

NASDAQ FFIV opened at $329.70 on Thursday. The stock has a market capitalization of $18.67 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.31, a PEG ratio of 2.94 and a beta of 1.07. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $425.41 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $363.56. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23, a quick ratio of 1.59 and a current ratio of 1.73. F5, Inc. has a 52 week low of $223.76 and a 52 week high of $483.30.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 27th. The network technology company reported $4.42 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $4.26 by $0.16. The company had revenue of $917.43 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $884.03 million. F5 had a net margin of 21.14% and a return on equity of 21.00%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 13.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business earned $4.39 EPS. As a group, analysts anticipate that F5, Inc. will post 14.19 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

F5 declared that its board has approved a share buyback program on Tuesday, October 27th that allows the company to repurchase $1.50 billion in shares. This buyback authorization allows the network technology company to reacquire shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are usually an indication that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages recently commented on FFIV. Wells Fargo & Company set a $500.00 price objective on shares of F5 in a report on Wednesday, October 28th. Barclays reaffirmed a “mixed” rating on shares of F5 in a research note on Wednesday, October 28th. Morgan Stanley upped their target price on shares of F5 from $415.00 to $448.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 28th. Wall Street Zen upgraded F5 from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday, August 1st. Finally, Needham & Company LLC reissued a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a research note on Tuesday, July 28th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, seven have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $443.00.

F5 Profile

F5, Inc (NASDAQ: FFIV) provides application delivery, security and traffic management solutions for enterprises, service providers and public-sector organizations. Its offerings are designed to help customers secure, optimize and manage applications and application programming interfaces (APIs) across data centers, private and public clouds, and edge environments.

The company’s portfolio includes BIG-IP software and appliances, NGINX application delivery and web server technologies, and F5 Distributed Cloud services.