Cinctive Capital Management LP Makes New $16.38 Million Investment in F5, Inc. $FFIV

Key Points

• Cinctive Capital Management LP disclosed a new fourth-quarter stake in F5, buying 64,186 shares valued at about $16.38 million. The position represents roughly 0.11% of F5 and about 0.9% of Cinctive’s portfolio.
• F5 reported better-than-expected quarterly results, posting EPS of $3.90 versus the $3.47 estimate and revenue of $811.7 million, up 11% year over year. The company also issued guidance for Q3 2026 EPS of 3.910-4.030 and FY 2026 EPS of 16.250-16.550.
• Insiders sold shares in May, including CEO Francois Locoh-Donou and EVP Thomas Dean Fountain, with total insider sales of 22,579 shares worth about $7.84 million over the past three months. Despite this, institutional ownership remains very high at 90.66%.

Cinctive Capital Management LP bought a new stake in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV - Free Report) during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm bought 64,186 shares of the network technology company's stock, valued at approximately $16,384,000. F5 comprises about 0.9% of Cinctive Capital Management LP's holdings, making the stock its 21st biggest holding. Cinctive Capital Management LP owned approximately 0.11% of F5 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of FFIV. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. raised its position in F5 by 15,103.5% in the 4th quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. now owns 1,170,216 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $298,709,000 after buying an additional 1,162,519 shares during the last quarter. First Trust Advisors LP raised its position in F5 by 68.5% in the 4th quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 2,753,652 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $702,897,000 after buying an additional 1,119,291 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in F5 in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $205,706,000. Deutsche Bank AG raised its position in F5 by 175.2% in the 4th quarter. Deutsche Bank AG now owns 958,947 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $244,781,000 after buying an additional 610,437 shares during the last quarter. Finally, UBS Group AG raised its position in F5 by 141.2% in the 4th quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 1,023,869 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $261,353,000 after buying an additional 599,384 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 90.66% of the company's stock.

F5 Stock Down 1.0%

NASDAQ:FFIV opened at $384.88 on Thursday. The firm has a market capitalization of $21.71 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.57, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.56 and a beta of 1.04. F5, Inc. has a twelve month low of $223.76 and a twelve month high of $411.52. The stock's 50 day moving average price is $354.18 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $301.05.

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 for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.47 by $0.43. F5 had a return on equity of 21.50% and a net margin of 21.96%.The firm had revenue of $811.70 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $783.82 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $3.42 EPS. The business's quarterly 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. As a group, analysts anticipate that F5, Inc. will post 12.78 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity at F5

In other news, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 3,783 shares of F5 stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, May 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $337.39, for a total transaction of $1,276,346.37. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 146,989 shares in the company, valued at approximately $49,592,618.71. The trade was a 2.51% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 1,328 shares of F5 stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, May 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $330.58, for a total value of $439,010.24. Following the transaction, the executive vice president owned 8,060 shares of the company's stock, valued at $2,664,474.80. This represents a 14.15% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold a total of 22,579 shares of company stock worth $7,836,860 in the last three months. 0.48% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on FFIV. Needham & Company LLC reissued a "hold" rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Wednesday, April 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on F5 from $355.00 to $365.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 29th. Evercore raised F5 from an "in-line" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $475.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Monday, May 18th. Morgan Stanley lifted their target price on F5 from $340.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an "equal weight" rating in a research report on Wednesday, May 20th. Finally, Weiss Ratings upgraded F5 from a "hold (c+)" rating to a "buy (b-)" rating in a research note on Monday, March 30th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $382.67.

F5 Company Profile

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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