Jefferies Financial Group Inc. Grows Stock Position in F5, Inc. $FFIV

Key Points

• Jefferies Financial Group boosted its F5 stake by 127% in the fourth quarter, ending with 34,529 shares valued at about $8.8 million.
• F5 reported better-than-expected earnings for the quarter, with EPS of $3.90 versus $3.47 expected and revenue of $811.7 million, up 11% year over year.
• The stock has been climbing toward its 52-week high, opening at $393.63, while analysts currently rate it a consensus “Hold” with a $353 price target.

Jefferies Financial Group Inc. lifted its stake in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV - Free Report) by 127.0% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 34,529 shares of the network technology company's stock after purchasing an additional 19,315 shares during the quarter. Jefferies Financial Group Inc. owned about 0.06% of F5 worth $8,814,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in FFIV. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. increased its holdings in shares of F5 by 15,103.5% in the fourth quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. now owns 1,170,216 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $298,709,000 after purchasing an additional 1,162,519 shares during the last quarter. UBS Group AG increased its holdings in shares of F5 by 141.2% in the fourth quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 1,023,869 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $261,353,000 after purchasing an additional 599,384 shares during the last quarter. M&T Bank Corp increased its holdings in shares of F5 by 17,181.1% in the fourth quarter. M&T Bank Corp now owns 309,158 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $78,916,000 after purchasing an additional 307,369 shares during the last quarter. Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec increased its holdings in shares of F5 by 169.2% in the third quarter. Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec now owns 462,740 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $149,553,000 after purchasing an additional 290,828 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Victory Capital Management Inc. increased its holdings in shares of F5 by 422.7% in the third quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 347,125 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $112,187,000 after purchasing an additional 280,719 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 90.66% of the company's stock.

F5 Price Performance

FFIV stock opened at $393.63 on Monday. The business has a fifty day moving average of $316.75 and a two-hundred day moving average of $281.09. The stock has a market cap of $22.21 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.29, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 9.05 and a beta of 1.00. F5, Inc. has a 52-week low of $223.76 and a 52-week high of $395.77.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV - Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.90 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.47 by $0.43. The company 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 firm's quarterly revenue was up 11.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $3.42 earnings per share. F5 has set its Q3 2026 guidance at 3.910-4.030 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 16.250-16.550 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that F5, Inc. will post 12.79 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts recently commented on FFIV shares. Morgan Stanley increased their price target on F5 from $340.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an "equal weight" rating in a report on Wednesday, May 20th. Piper Sandler reaffirmed an "overweight" rating on shares of F5 in a report on Wednesday, April 29th. Weiss Ratings raised F5 from a "hold (c+)" rating to a "buy (b-)" rating in a report on Monday, March 30th. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their price target on F5 from $285.00 to $320.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a report on Wednesday, January 28th. Finally, Barclays increased their price target on F5 from $283.00 to $292.00 and gave the company an "equal weight" rating in a report on Wednesday, April 29th. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and a consensus price target of $353.00.

Insider Activity at F5

In other F5 news, CFO Edward Cooper Werner sold 1,500 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction on Friday, May 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $350.00, for a total transaction of $525,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer owned 2,906 shares of the company's stock, valued at $1,017,100. This trade represents a 34.04% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 1,328 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction on 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 of the company's stock, valued at approximately $2,664,474.80. This trade represents a 14.15% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders have sold 24,491 shares of company stock valued at $7,966,227 over the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 0.48% of the company's stock.

F5 Company Profile

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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