Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund Purchases 4,671 Shares of F5, Inc. $FFIV

Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund increased its position in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) by 19.9% in the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 28,173 shares of the network technology company’s stock after acquiring an additional 4,671 shares during the quarter. Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund’s holdings in F5 were worth $9,105,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

A number of other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Whipplewood Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in F5 by 275.0% in the second quarter. Whipplewood Advisors LLC now owns 90 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $26,000 after acquiring an additional 66 shares during the period. CYBER HORNET ETFs LLC purchased a new stake in shares of F5 during the 2nd quarter valued at about $45,000. Root Financial Partners LLC purchased a new stake in shares of F5 during the 3rd quarter valued at about $49,000. SJS Investment Consulting Inc. lifted its stake in shares of F5 by 2,128.6% in the 3rd quarter. SJS Investment Consulting Inc. now owns 156 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $50,000 after purchasing an additional 149 shares during the period. Finally, Geneos Wealth Management Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of F5 by 288.1% in the first quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 163 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $43,000 after buying an additional 121 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

F5 Stock Performance

Shares of F5 stock opened at $273.93 on Friday. F5, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $223.76 and a fifty-two week high of $346.00. The company has a market capitalization of $15.48 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.66, a P/E/G ratio of 7.42 and a beta of 1.00. The company has a fifty day moving average of $266.74 and a 200 day moving average of $285.17.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, January 27th. The network technology company reported $4.45 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.63 by $0.82. F5 had a return on equity of 22.08% and a net margin of 22.45%.The business had revenue of $822.47 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $755.97 million. During the same period last year, the firm earned $3.84 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 7.3% on a year-over-year basis. F5 has set its Q2 2026 guidance at 3.340-3.460 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 15.650-16.050 EPS. Analysts forecast that F5, Inc. will post 11.2 EPS for the current year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts have commented on FFIV shares. Wall Street Zen cut shares of F5 from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, November 28th. Weiss Ratings lowered F5 from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 27th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised their target price on F5 from $285.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 28th. Zacks Research raised F5 from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, January 9th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC restated a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Wednesday, January 28th. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have issued a Hold rating and two have given a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $309.89.

F5 News Summary

Here are the key news stories impacting F5 this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Zacks Research raised several near‑term and multi‑year EPS forecasts for F5 (including FY2026–FY2028 and certain quarterly tweaks), which supports upside to consensus earnings expectations and helped sentiment. Zacks estimates summary
• Positive Sentiment: Institutional buying reported in Q4 (notable positions added by Northwestern Mutual, Norges Bank, Deutsche Bank and UBS) signals strong fund conviction and may underpin the share price. Institutional ownership details
• Positive Sentiment: F5’s January quarter earlier this year beat EPS and revenue estimates and management set FY26 guidance above some expectations — a fundamental driver supporting the recent rally. Quarterly results and guidance
• Neutral Sentiment: Short‑interest reporting for mid‑February shows anomalous zero values in some feeds (likely a reporting glitch); treat the strange numbers cautiously and rely on the January short‑interest snapshot instead.
• Negative Sentiment: Multiple law firms have filed or are soliciting lead‑plaintiff claims in a securities class action alleging F5 misled investors about security issues in its BIG‑IP products (claims reference an alleged long‑term undetected intrusion). The Feb. 17 lead‑plaintiff deadline is driving a cluster of notices and heightening litigation risk and reputational uncertainty. Hagens Berman filing GlobeNewswire notice
• Negative Sentiment: Clustered insider selling disclosed Feb. 10 (including sales by the CTO and multiple EVPs) can spook investors even if sales are for diversification/liquidity — review the Form 4s for context. SEC Form 4

Insider Activity at F5

In other news, insider Lyra Amber Schramm sold 199 shares of F5 stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $281.37, for a total transaction of $55,992.63. Following the sale, the insider owned 177 shares in the company, valued at $49,802.49. This trade represents a 52.93% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, EVP Angelique M. Okeke sold 386 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $278.32, for a total transaction of $107,431.52. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president directly owned 1,874 shares in the company, valued at $521,571.68. This trade represents a 17.08% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders have sold 20,301 shares of company stock worth $5,204,053 in the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.48% of the company’s stock.

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.