F5, Inc. $FFIV Stock Position Boosted by Bank of Montreal Can

Key Points

• Bank of Montreal increased its stake in F5 by 1.9% to 302,909 shares (about $97.9M), and institutional investors now own roughly 90.66% of the company.
• F5 beat estimates with Q4 EPS of $4.45 (consensus $3.63) and revenue of $822.47M (consensus $755.97M), and issued Q2 FY2026 EPS guidance of 3.340–3.460 and FY2026 guidance of 15.650–16.050.
• Analyst sentiment is mixed: the MarketBeat average rating is "Hold" with an average target of $309.89, though JPMorgan upgraded F5 to "Overweight" and raised its target to $345 while other firms moved targets in both directions.

Bank of Montreal Can grew its stake in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV - Free Report) by 1.9% during the third quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 302,909 shares of the network technology company's stock after buying an additional 5,612 shares during the quarter. Bank of Montreal Can owned about 0.53% of F5 worth $97,897,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in FFIV. Abich Financial Wealth Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of F5 during the 3rd quarter valued at $37,000. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of F5 by 288.1% in the first quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 163 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $43,000 after buying an additional 121 shares during the period. CYBER HORNET ETFs LLC bought a new position in F5 during the second quarter valued at about $45,000. Root Financial Partners LLC bought a new position in F5 during the third quarter valued at about $49,000. Finally, SJS Investment Consulting Inc. grew its holdings in F5 by 2,128.6% during the third quarter. SJS Investment Consulting Inc. now owns 156 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $50,000 after acquiring an additional 149 shares during the period. 90.66% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have commented on FFIV. The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their price target on shares of F5 from $285.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock a "neutral" rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 28th. Barclays lifted their price objective on shares of F5 from $267.00 to $283.00 and gave the stock an "equal weight" rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 28th. Morgan Stanley dropped their target price on shares of F5 from $336.00 to $296.00 and set an "equal weight" rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, December 17th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised shares of F5 from a "neutral" rating to an "overweight" rating and increased their target price for the company from $295.00 to $345.00 in a research note on Thursday, January 15th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC restated a "hold" rating on shares of F5 in a report on Wednesday, January 28th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have issued a Hold rating and two have issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of "Hold" and an average target price of $309.89.

F5 Stock Up 1.2%

NASDAQ:FFIV opened at $289.52 on Thursday. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $273.90 and a 200 day simple moving average of $280.33. The firm has a market capitalization of $16.36 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.95, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 8.10 and a beta of 1.01. F5, Inc. has a 1-year low of $223.76 and a 1-year high of $346.00.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, January 27th. The network technology company reported $4.45 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.63 by $0.82. The firm had revenue of $822.47 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $755.97 million. F5 had a return on equity of 22.08% and a net margin of 22.45%.The business's revenue for the quarter was up 7.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $3.84 EPS. F5 has set its Q2 2026 guidance at 3.340-3.460 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 15.650-16.050 EPS. Equities analysts predict that F5, Inc. will post 11.2 earnings per share for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other F5 news, Director Michael L. Dreyer sold 3,067 shares of the business's stock in a transaction on Friday, February 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $282.41, for a total transaction of $866,151.47. Following the sale, the director directly owned 1,309 shares of the company's stock, valued at $369,674.69. The trade was a 70.09% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Edward Cooper Werner sold 969 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $282.20, for a total value of $273,451.80. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer owned 5,305 shares of the company's stock, valued at $1,497,071. The trade was a 15.44% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold 23,501 shares of company stock worth $6,415,370 in the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 0.48% of the company's stock.

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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