Louisiana State Employees Retirement System Acquires New Stake in F5, Inc. $FFIV

Key Points

• Louisiana State Employees Retirement System opened a new position in F5 during the first quarter, buying 2,900 shares valued at about $839,000.
• Institutional interest in F5 remains strong, with several large investors adding to or establishing stakes; the stock is now 90.66% owned by institutions.
• F5 beat earnings and revenue estimates in its latest quarter, and analysts remain broadly positive, with a Moderate Buy consensus and an average target price of $382.67.

Louisiana State Employees Retirement System bought a new position in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV - Free Report) during the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm bought 2,900 shares of the network technology company's stock, valued at approximately $839,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the business. Barclays PLC boosted its position in F5 by 51.7% during the third quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 310,368 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $100,308,000 after purchasing an additional 105,738 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new position in F5 in the fourth quarter worth $205,706,000. Jefferies Financial Group Inc. increased its position in shares of F5 by 127.0% during the fourth quarter. Jefferies Financial Group Inc. now owns 34,529 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $8,814,000 after purchasing an additional 19,315 shares in the last quarter. William Blair Investment Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of F5 during the fourth quarter worth $140,460,000. Finally, Tredje AP fonden lifted its holdings in shares of F5 by 98.2% during the 4th quarter. Tredje AP fonden now owns 7,683 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $1,961,000 after purchasing an additional 3,807 shares during the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

FFIV has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. Weiss Ratings reissued a "buy (b-)" rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Friday, June 26th. Piper Sandler upped their target price on F5 from $356.00 to $423.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a research report on Friday, May 29th. Zacks Research upgraded F5 from a "hold" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a research note on Friday, June 26th. Barclays raised their price target on F5 from $292.00 to $386.00 and gave the stock an "equal weight" rating in a report on Friday, May 29th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price target on F5 from $355.00 to $365.00 and gave the stock an "overweight" rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 29th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, six have assigned a Buy rating, four have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $382.67.

Insider Buying and Selling at F5

In other news, CFO Edward Cooper Werner sold 2,500 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, June 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $400.00, for a total value of $1,000,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer directly owned 406 shares in the company, valued at $162,400. This trade represents a 86.03% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, EVP Chad Michael Whalen sold 6,200 shares of F5 stock in a transaction dated 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 sale, the executive vice president directly owned 20,832 shares of the company's stock, valued at $7,295,158.08. This trade represents a 22.94% decrease in their position. 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. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 22,579 shares of company stock worth $7,836,860. 0.48% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

F5 Stock Performance

NASDAQ:FFIV opened at $408.14 on Monday. F5, Inc. has a 12 month low of $223.76 and a 12 month high of $427.54. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $376.86 and a 200-day simple moving average of $313.59. The company has a market capitalization of $23.03 billion, a P/E ratio of 33.48, a PEG ratio of 4.79 and a beta of 1.03.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV - Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.90 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.47 by $0.43. The firm had revenue of $811.70 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $783.82 million. F5 had a return on equity of 21.50% and a net margin of 21.96%.The firm's revenue was up 11.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior 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. Equities analysts forecast that F5, Inc. will post 12.78 EPS for the current year.

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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