F5, Inc. $FFIV Shares Sold by Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc.

Key Points

• Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group reduced its F5 stake by 3.6%, selling 4,853 shares in the third quarter and retaining 129,799 shares valued at about $57.8 million.
• F5 beat quarterly earnings and revenue estimates, reporting EPS of $4.42 and revenue of $917.4 million; revenue increased 13.2% year over year.
• The board authorized a $1.5 billion share repurchase program. Analysts’ consensus rating is “Hold,” with an average price target of $443.

Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. cut its holdings in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV - Free Report) by 3.6% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 129,799 shares of the network technology company's stock after selling 4,853 shares during the quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. owned about 0.23% of F5 worth $57,784,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of FFIV. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. purchased a new position in F5 during the third quarter worth about $10,587,000. ProShare Advisors LLC raised its stake in shares of F5 by 2.7% in the 3rd quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC now owns 11,409 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $5,079,000 after acquiring an additional 300 shares during the period. Vise Technologies Inc. raised its stake in shares of F5 by 14.5% in the 3rd quarter. Vise Technologies Inc. now owns 9,886 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $4,401,000 after acquiring an additional 1,254 shares during the period. Summit Global Investments purchased a new stake in shares of F5 in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $1,610,000. Finally, MGO One Seven LLC lifted its holdings in shares of F5 by 2.6% in the 3rd quarter. MGO One Seven LLC now owns 2,056 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $915,000 after acquiring an additional 53 shares during the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a "hold" rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Tuesday, July 28th. Morgan Stanley lifted their target price on shares of F5 from $415.00 to $448.00 and gave the company an "equal weight" rating in a report on Wednesday, October 28th. Wolfe Research lowered F5 from a "strong-buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a research report on Thursday, October 29th. Zacks Research cut F5 from a "strong-buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a research note on Monday, July 27th. Finally, Wall Street Zen upgraded F5 from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating in a research note on Saturday, August 1st. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, seven have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average target price of $443.00.

F5 Stock Performance

NASDAQ FFIV opened at $331.15 on Wednesday. The company has a market cap of $18.75 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.43, a P/E/G ratio of 2.88 and a beta of 1.07. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23, a current ratio of 1.73 and a quick ratio of 1.59. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $426.47 and a two-hundred day moving average of $363.28. F5, Inc. has a 1-year low of $223.76 and a 1-year high of $483.30.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 27th. The network technology company reported $4.42 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $4.26 by $0.16. The company 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 business's revenue for the quarter was up 13.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $4.39 earnings per share. As a group, analysts anticipate that F5, Inc. will post 14.19 EPS for the current year.

F5 announced that its board has authorized a share repurchase program on Tuesday, October 27th that authorizes the company to buy back $1.50 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the network technology company to purchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Share buyback programs are often a sign that the company's management believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other F5 news, CTO Michael F. Montoya sold 4,426 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, September 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $410.16, for a total transaction of $1,815,368.16. Following the sale, the chief technology officer directly owned 1,309 shares in the company, valued at $536,899.44. This represents a 77.18% decrease in their position. 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 stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, September 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $406.24, for a total transaction of $82,872.96. Following the sale, the insider owned 1,149 shares in the company, valued at approximately $466,769.76. This trade represents 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 own 0.48% of the company's stock.

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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