Harel Insurance Investments & Financial Services Ltd. Acquires 7,816 Shares of F5, Inc. $FFIV

Key Points

• Harel Insurance Investments increased its F5 stake by 34% in the first quarter, buying 7,816 additional shares and bringing its total holding to 30,799 shares valued at about $8.9 million.
• F5 continues to attract major institutional interest, with investors like Norges Bank and William Blair taking large positions; institutions now own about 90.66% of the company.
• F5 reported stronger-than-expected quarterly results, with EPS of $3.90 and revenue of $811.7 million, while analysts currently rate the stock a Moderate Buy with a consensus price target of $382.67.

Harel Insurance Investments & Financial Services Ltd. grew its holdings in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV - Free Report) by 34.0% during the first quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 30,799 shares of the network technology company's stock after purchasing an additional 7,816 shares during the quarter. Harel Insurance Investments & Financial Services Ltd. owned about 0.05% of F5 worth $8,909,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of F5 during the 4th quarter worth about $205,706,000. Jefferies Financial Group Inc. increased its position in F5 by 127.0% in the 4th quarter. Jefferies Financial Group Inc. now owns 34,529 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $8,814,000 after buying an additional 19,315 shares in the last quarter. iA Global Asset Management Inc. bought a new stake in F5 in the 1st quarter valued at about $6,469,000. William Blair Investment Management LLC acquired a new position in F5 during the 4th quarter worth approximately $140,460,000. Finally, Tredje AP fonden raised its stake in F5 by 98.2% during the 4th quarter. Tredje AP fonden now owns 7,683 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $1,961,000 after buying an additional 3,807 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 90.66% of the company's stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages have commented on FFIV. Weiss Ratings reissued a "buy (b-)" rating on shares of F5 in a research note on Friday, June 26th. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a "hold" rating on shares of F5 in a report on Wednesday, April 29th. Piper Sandler lifted their price target on shares of F5 from $356.00 to $423.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a research report on Friday, May 29th. Bank of America boosted their price target 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. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price objective on shares of F5 from $355.00 to $365.00 and gave the stock an "overweight" rating in a report on Wednesday, April 29th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, five have assigned a Buy rating, four have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $382.67.

Insider Transactions at F5

In other F5 news, EVP Chad Michael Whalen sold 6,200 shares of the business's stock in a transaction on Friday, May 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $350.19, for a total value of $2,171,178.00. Following the transaction, the executive vice president owned 20,832 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $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 Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CTO Kunal Anand sold 3,123 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction on Monday, May 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $322.33, for a total value of $1,006,636.59. Following the completion of the sale, the chief technology officer directly owned 12,194 shares of the company's stock, valued at $3,930,492.02. This represents a 20.39% 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. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 22,579 shares of company stock worth $7,836,860. 0.48% of the stock is owned by insiders.

F5 Trading Down 2.3%

Shares of F5 stock opened at $421.47 on Thursday. The company has a market capitalization of $23.78 billion, a P/E ratio of 34.58, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 5.06 and a beta of 1.03. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $393.89 and a 200 day simple moving average of $322.85. F5, Inc. has a 12-month low of $223.76 and a 12-month 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 (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $3.47 by $0.43. F5 had a net margin of 21.96% and a return on equity of 21.50%. The firm had revenue of $811.70 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $783.82 million. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $3.42 EPS. The business's revenue for the quarter was up 11.0% compared to the same quarter last year. 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, analysts predict that F5, Inc. will post 12.78 EPS for the current 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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