Fifth Third Bancorp Acquires 7,054 Shares of F5, Inc. $FFIV

Key Points

• Fifth Third Bancorp increased its stake in F5, Inc. by 246.4% in the first quarter, adding 7,054 shares to bring its total holdings to 9,917 shares worth about $2.87 million.
• Institutional ownership of F5 remains high, with 90.66% of the stock held by hedge funds and other institutional investors, while several analysts have raised or maintained positive ratings and the consensus view is now “Moderate Buy” with a $382.67 price target.
• F5 recently posted stronger-than-expected quarterly results, earning $3.90 per share on revenue of $811.7 million, and the stock has climbed to $411.92, near its 52-week high of $435.

Fifth Third Bancorp boosted its stake in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV - Free Report) by 246.4% during the 1st quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 9,917 shares of the network technology company's stock after acquiring an additional 7,054 shares during the quarter. Fifth Third Bancorp's holdings in F5 were worth $2,869,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Pinnacle Wealth Management Advisory Group LLC boosted its stake in shares of F5 by 2.6% during the 1st quarter. Pinnacle Wealth Management Advisory Group LLC now owns 1,447 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $419,000 after purchasing an additional 36 shares during the period. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC raised its position in F5 by 3.4% in the 4th quarter. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC now owns 1,190 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $309,000 after purchasing an additional 39 shares during the period. Pacific Sage Partners LLC lifted its stake in F5 by 0.6% in the fourth quarter. Pacific Sage Partners LLC now owns 7,122 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $1,818,000 after purchasing an additional 40 shares during the last quarter. Meiji Yasuda Asset Management Co Ltd. boosted its position in shares of F5 by 4.4% during the fourth quarter. Meiji Yasuda Asset Management Co Ltd. now owns 968 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $247,000 after buying an additional 41 shares during the period. Finally, Coldstream Capital Management Inc. grew its stake in shares of F5 by 4.5% during the third quarter. Coldstream Capital Management Inc. now owns 1,047 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $338,000 after buying an additional 45 shares during the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have commented on the company. Evercore raised F5 from an "in-line" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $475.00 price objective on the stock in a research report on Monday, May 18th. Weiss Ratings reissued a "buy (b-)" rating on shares of F5 in a research note on Friday, June 26th. Bank of America boosted their target price on shares of F5 from $250.00 to $300.00 and gave the company an "underperform" rating in a research note on Tuesday, May 26th. Barclays raised their price target on shares of F5 from $292.00 to $386.00 and gave the stock an "equal weight" rating in a research note on Friday, May 29th. Finally, Zacks Research upgraded shares of F5 from a "hold" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a report on Friday, June 26th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, five have assigned a Buy rating, four have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, F5 presently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $382.67.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, EVP Chad Michael Whalen sold 6,200 shares of the business's stock in a transaction on Friday, May 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $350.19, for a total transaction of $2,171,178.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president directly owned 20,832 shares in the company, valued at $7,295,158.08. The trade was a 22.94% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at 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 stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $330.58, for a total value of $439,010.24. Following the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 8,060 shares in the company, valued at $2,664,474.80. This 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 three months, insiders sold 22,579 shares of company stock worth $7,836,860. Company insiders own 0.48% of the company's stock.

F5 Stock Performance

Shares of F5 stock opened at $411.92 on Tuesday. The company has a market capitalization of $23.24 billion, a PE ratio of 33.79, a P/E/G ratio of 4.80 and a beta of 1.03. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $397.23 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $325.96. F5, Inc. has a one year low of $223.76 and a one year high of $435.00.

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

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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