805,870 Shares in F5, Inc. $FFIV Acquired by Norges Bank

Key Points

• Norges Bank disclosed a new position in F5, buying 805,870 shares worth about $205.7 million in the fourth quarter and ending with a 1.43% stake in the company.
• F5’s stock was up 3.4% to $409.13, near its 52-week high of $410.11, as the company continued to trade well above its 50-day and 200-day moving averages.
• F5 beat quarterly expectations with EPS of $3.90 on revenue of $811.7 million, and management issued guidance for Q3 2026 and FY 2026 above current analyst expectations.

Norges Bank purchased a new position in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV - Free Report) during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund purchased 805,870 shares of the network technology company's stock, valued at approximately $205,706,000. Norges Bank owned 1.43% of F5 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of FFIV. Millennium Management LLC raised its holdings in F5 by 166.5% during the 1st quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 62,906 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $16,750,000 after acquiring an additional 39,305 shares during the period. NewEdge Advisors LLC raised its holdings in F5 by 1,281.4% during the 1st quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC now owns 967 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $257,000 after acquiring an additional 897 shares during the period. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. raised its holdings in F5 by 38.4% during the 1st quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 298,297 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $79,428,000 after acquiring an additional 82,835 shares during the period. Focus Partners Wealth bought a new stake in F5 during the 1st quarter valued at $257,000. Finally, Geneos Wealth Management Inc. raised its holdings in F5 by 288.1% during the 1st quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 163 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $43,000 after acquiring an additional 121 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 90.66% of the company's stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms have recently weighed in on FFIV. Bank of America upped their price target on shares of F5 from $250.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock an "underperform" rating in a report on Tuesday, May 26th. Weiss Ratings raised shares of F5 from a "hold (c+)" rating to a "buy (b-)" rating in a report on Monday, March 30th. Evercore raised shares of F5 from an "in-line" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $475.00 price target on the stock in a report on Monday, May 18th. Morgan Stanley upped their price target on shares of F5 from $340.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an "equal weight" rating in a report on Wednesday, May 20th. Finally, Barclays upped their price target on shares of F5 from $292.00 to $386.00 and gave the stock an "equal weight" rating in a report on Friday, May 29th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have issued a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, F5 presently has an average rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $379.89.

F5 Stock Up 3.4%

NASDAQ FFIV opened at $409.13 on Wednesday. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $329.29 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $287.29. F5, Inc. has a 12-month low of $223.76 and a 12-month high of $410.11. The firm has a market cap of $23.08 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.56, a PEG ratio of 9.10 and a beta of 1.04.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.90 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.47 by $0.43. F5 had a net margin of 21.96% and a return on equity of 21.50%. The business had revenue of $811.70 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $783.82 million. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $3.42 earnings per share. The company's revenue was up 11.0% on a year-over-year basis. F5 has set its Q3 2026 guidance at 3.910-4.030 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 16.250-16.550 EPS. Equities analysts expect that F5, Inc. will post 12.78 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at F5

In other news, CTO Kunal Anand sold 3,123 shares of the company's stock in a transaction dated Monday, May 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $322.33, for a total transaction of $1,006,636.59. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief technology officer directly owned 12,194 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $3,930,492.02. This represents a 20.39% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 1,328 shares of the company's stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $330.58, for a total transaction of $439,010.24. Following the transaction, the executive vice president directly owned 8,060 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $2,664,474.80. This trade represents a 14.15% 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. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 19,767 shares of company stock valued at $6,628,120. 0.48% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

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.

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