F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) Shares Bought by Jupiter Asset Management Ltd.

Key Points

• Jupiter Asset Management Ltd. increased its stake in F5, Inc. by 0.6% in Q1, now holding 298,291 shares worth approximately $79.43 million, representing about 0.8% of its portfolio.
• F5's CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 1,300 shares at a total value of $382,616, reducing his ownership by 1.20%.
• Analysts have revised F5's ratings, with Wall Street Zen downgraded from "strong-buy" to "buy," while Morgan Stanley and Royal Bank of Canada raised their price targets to $312 and $326, respectively.

Jupiter Asset Management Ltd. increased its stake in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV - Free Report) by 0.6% in the first quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 298,291 shares of the network technology company's stock after purchasing an additional 1,785 shares during the period. F5 accounts for about 0.8% of Jupiter Asset Management Ltd.'s portfolio, making the stock its 23rd largest position. Jupiter Asset Management Ltd. owned about 0.52% of F5 worth $79,426,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Baker Avenue Asset Management LP acquired a new stake in shares of F5 in the first quarter worth $244,000. Private Advisory Group LLC acquired a new stake in shares of F5 in the first quarter worth $469,000. Vestcor Inc increased its stake in shares of F5 by 689.3% in the first quarter. Vestcor Inc now owns 7,364 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $1,961,000 after acquiring an additional 6,431 shares during the period. Banque Cantonale Vaudoise acquired a new stake in shares of F5 in the first quarter worth $2,589,000. Finally, Federated Hermes Inc. increased its stake in shares of F5 by 1,306.4% in the first quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. now owns 117,902 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $31,394,000 after acquiring an additional 109,519 shares during the period. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Transactions at F5

In other F5 news, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 1,300 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, July 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $294.32, for a total transaction of $382,616.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 107,100 shares of the company's stock, valued at $31,521,672. This represents a 1.20% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, Director Michael L. Dreyer sold 1,800 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, May 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $285.96, for a total value of $514,728.00. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 4,376 shares of the company's stock, valued at $1,251,360.96. The trade was a 29.15% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 5,872 shares of company stock worth $1,702,309 over the last three months. 0.52% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. Wall Street Zen lowered shares of F5 from a "strong-buy" rating to a "buy" rating in a research note on Thursday, May 22nd. William Blair reissued an "outperform" rating on shares of F5 in a report on Tuesday, April 29th. Morgan Stanley boosted their price target on F5 from $305.00 to $312.00 and gave the company an "equal weight" rating in a report on Thursday. Royal Bank Of Canada boosted their price target on F5 from $314.00 to $326.00 and gave the company a "sector perform" rating in a report on Thursday. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price target on F5 from $285.00 to $305.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a report on Thursday, July 17th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have issued a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company's stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $309.89.

F5 Trading Down 1.9%

Shares of FFIV opened at $307.43 on Friday. F5, Inc. has a 12 month low of $184.80 and a 12 month high of $334.00. The stock's 50 day moving average is $294.53 and its two-hundred day moving average is $282.40. The firm has a market cap of $17.66 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.09, a PEG ratio of 3.96 and a beta of 1.03.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 30th. The network technology company reported $4.16 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.49 by $0.67. F5 had a return on equity of 21.77% and a net margin of 22.06%. The company had revenue of $780.37 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $750.64 million. During the same period last year, the company earned $3.36 earnings per share. F5's quarterly revenue was up 12.2% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts forecast that F5, Inc. will post 11.2 EPS for the current year.

F5 Company Profile

F5, Inc provides multi-cloud application security and delivery solutions in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific region. The company's distributed cloud services enable its customers to deploy, secure, and operate applications in any architecture, from on-premises to the public cloud.

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