Sterling Capital Management LLC Sells 1,249 Shares of F5, Inc. $FFIV

Sterling Capital Management LLC lessened its holdings in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) by 6.8% in the third quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 17,027 shares of the network technology company’s stock after selling 1,249 shares during the period. Sterling Capital Management LLC’s holdings in F5 were worth $7,580,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Several other large investors have also recently modified their holdings of FFIV. Persistent Asset Partners Ltd bought a new stake in shares of F5 in the second quarter valued at approximately $36,000. SJS Investment Consulting Inc. lifted its stake in shares of F5 by 963.6% during the 1st quarter. SJS Investment Consulting Inc. now owns 117 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $34,000 after buying an additional 106 shares in the last quarter. Bell Investment Advisors Inc purchased a new stake in shares of F5 during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $49,000. Elevation Wealth Partners LLC lifted its stake in shares of F5 by 373.1% during the 2nd quarter. Elevation Wealth Partners LLC now owns 123 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $51,000 after buying an additional 97 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Root Financial Partners LLC boosted its holdings in F5 by 91.4% in the 1st quarter. Root Financial Partners LLC now owns 201 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $58,000 after buying an additional 96 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at F5

In other news, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 3,782 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 5th. The shares were 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 directly owned 146,989 shares in the company, valued at $60,624,143.16. The trade was a 2.51% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CTO Kunal Anand sold 392 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on 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 transaction, the chief technology officer directly owned 12,586 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,092,673.18. The trade was a 3.02% 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 have sold a total of 16,829 shares of company stock worth $6,815,302 in the last ninety days. Insiders own 0.48% of the company’s stock.

F5 Price Performance

FFIV stock traded up $5.34 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $455.42. 622,514 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 524,552. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $427.67 and a 200-day moving average price of $395.01. F5, Inc. has a 52-week low of $223.76 and a 52-week high of $483.30. The company has a market capitalization of $25.79 billion, a P/E ratio of 36.26, a P/E/G ratio of 4.26 and a beta of 1.03.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Monday, July 27th. The network technology company reported $4.73 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $4.00 by $0.73. F5 had a net margin of 21.95% and a return on equity of 21.54%. The firm had revenue of $865.08 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $834.60 million. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $4.16 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter 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. As a group, analysts forecast that F5, Inc. will post 13.65 EPS for the current year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

FFIV has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on shares of F5 from $380.00 to $415.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 28th. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a report on Tuesday, July 28th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on F5 from $500.00 to $515.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 28th. Weiss Ratings upgraded F5 from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “buy (b)” rating in a research report on Friday, October 9th. Finally, Barclays raised their price target on F5 from $386.00 to $397.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 28th. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, F5 presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $426.00.

F5 Company 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.