AQR Capital Management LLC Increases Stake in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV)

AQR Capital Management LLC lifted its position in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV - Free Report) by 0.9% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 602,669 shares of the network technology company's stock after buying an additional 5,479 shares during the period. AQR Capital Management LLC owned approximately 1.04% of F5 worth $151,553,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Crowley Wealth Management Inc. acquired a new position in shares of F5 during the fourth quarter worth $35,000. Hurley Capital LLC purchased a new position in F5 during the 4th quarter worth $43,000. Friedenthal Financial acquired a new position in F5 during the 4th quarter valued at about $50,000. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC raised its stake in F5 by 31.8% in the fourth quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 203 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $51,000 after buying an additional 49 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Smithfield Trust Co acquired a new stake in F5 in the fourth quarter worth about $57,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 90.66% of the company's stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Royal Bank of Canada restated a "sector perform" rating and set a $290.00 price objective on shares of F5 in a report on Tuesday. Barclays cut their price target on shares of F5 from $296.00 to $274.00 and set an "equal weight" rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday. StockNews.com downgraded shares of F5 from a "strong-buy" rating to a "buy" rating in a research note on Wednesday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their target price on F5 from $296.00 to $285.00 and set a "neutral" rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, April 17th. Finally, Bank of America lifted their price target on F5 from $180.00 to $260.00 and gave the stock an "underperform" rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of "Hold" and a consensus price target of $282.56.

F5 Trading Up 1.1 %

Shares of NASDAQ FFIV traded up $3.04 during trading on Friday, reaching $268.81. 514,304 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 575,969. The stock has a market cap of $15.50 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.72, a PEG ratio of 3.85 and a beta of 1.14. The firm's fifty day simple moving average is $265.90 and its 200 day simple moving average is $262.01. F5, Inc. has a 12-month low of $164.45 and a 12-month high of $313.00.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Monday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.42 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.11 by $0.31. F5 had a return on equity of 20.98% and a net margin of 20.58%. The company had revenue of $590.16 million during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $719.91 million. During the same period last year, the business earned $2.91 earnings per share. F5's quarterly revenue was up 7.3% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts expect that F5, Inc. will post 11.2 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity at F5

In related news, Director Marianne Budnik sold 1,872 shares of F5 stock in a transaction on Friday, March 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $260.72, for a total value of $488,067.84. Following the sale, the director now owns 1,207 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $314,689.04. This trade represents a 60.80 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, EVP Scot Frazier Rogers sold 3,486 shares of the company's stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $293.18, for a total transaction of $1,022,025.48. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 20,075 shares of the company's stock, valued at $5,885,588.50. This represents a 14.80 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 17,504 shares of company stock worth $5,088,492. 0.52% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

About F5

F5, Inc provides multi-cloud application security and delivery solutions in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific region. The company's distributed cloud services enable its customers to deploy, secure, and operate applications in any architecture, from on-premises to the public cloud.