10,353 F5, Inc. $FFIV Shares Acquired by Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich

Key Points

• Bank Julius Baer increased its F5 stake by 68.2% in the third quarter, acquiring 10,353 additional shares and bringing its holdings to 25,531 shares valued at approximately $11.34 million. Institutional investors collectively own 90.66% of F5.
• F5 reported quarterly EPS of $4.42, surpassing estimates of $4.26, while revenue rose 13.2% year over year to $917.43 million. The company also authorized a $1.5 billion share-buyback program.
• F5 shares opened at $324.55, down 4.1%, while analyst sentiment remained mixed: the stock carries a consensus “Hold” rating and an average price target of $443.

Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich increased its stake in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV - Free Report) by 68.2% in the third quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 25,531 shares of the network technology company's stock after purchasing an additional 10,353 shares during the period. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich's holdings in F5 were worth $11,337,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Several other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of FFIV. Persistent Asset Partners Ltd acquired a new position in shares of F5 in the second quarter valued at about $36,000. Bell Investment Advisors Inc acquired a new stake in shares of F5 during the second quarter worth about $49,000. Elevation Wealth Partners LLC boosted its position in F5 by 373.1% in the second 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 during the last quarter. Root Financial Partners LLC boosted its position in F5 by 91.4% in the first quarter. Root Financial Partners LLC now owns 201 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $58,000 after buying an additional 96 shares during the last quarter. Finally, SBI Securities Co. Ltd. boosted its position in F5 by 458.3% in the third quarter. SBI Securities Co. Ltd. now owns 201 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $89,000 after buying an additional 165 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 90.66% of the company's stock.

F5 Stock Down 4.1%

FFIV opened at $324.55 on Tuesday. F5, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $223.76 and a fifty-two week high of $483.30. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23, a quick ratio of 1.59 and a current ratio of 1.73. The company has a fifty day moving average of $427.43 and a two-hundred day moving average of $362.96. The stock has a market capitalization of $18.38 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.90, a PEG ratio of 3.46 and a beta of 1.03.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV - Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, October 27th. The network technology company reported $4.42 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $4.26 by $0.16. The business had revenue of $917.43 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $884.03 million. F5 had a net margin of 21.14% and a return on equity of 21.00%. The company's revenue for the quarter was up 13.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $4.39 EPS. On average, research analysts expect that F5, Inc. will post 14.19 earnings per share for the current year.

F5 declared that its board has initiated a stock buyback plan on Tuesday, October 27th that authorizes the company to buy back $1.50 billion in shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the network technology company to buy shares of its stock through open market purchases. Share buyback plans are typically an indication that the company's management believes its stock is undervalued.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. Royal Bank Of Canada increased their price objective on shares of F5 from $525.00 to $540.00 and gave the stock an "outperform" rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 28th. Wolfe Research downgraded shares of F5 from a "strong-buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a research report on Thursday, October 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on shares of F5 from $500.00 to $515.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a report on Tuesday, July 28th. Morgan Stanley increased their price target on F5 from $415.00 to $448.00 and gave the stock an "equal weight" rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 28th. Finally, Piper Sandler lowered F5 from an "overweight" rating to a "neutral" rating and set a $461.00 price objective for the company. in a research note on Wednesday, October 28th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, seven have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, F5 currently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and a consensus price target of $443.00.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CTO Michael Montoya sold 4,426 shares of the business's stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, September 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $410.16, for a total value of $1,815,368.16. Following the completion of the sale, the chief technology officer directly owned 1,309 shares in the company, valued at $536,899.44. The trade was a 77.18% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, insider John Maddison sold 204 shares of the company's stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, September 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $406.24, for a total value of $82,872.96. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 1,149 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $466,769.76. The trade was a 15.08% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold a total of 9,620 shares of company stock valued at $3,958,962 in the last three months. 0.48% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

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.

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