M&T Bank Corp Grows Position in F5, Inc. $FFIV

Key Points

• M&T Bank dramatically increased its stake in F5 by 17,181.1% in Q4, buying 307,369 shares to hold 309,158 shares (about 0.53% of the company) valued at roughly $78.9 million.
• F5 posted strong quarterly results, beating estimates with $4.45 EPS (vs. $3.63 expected) and $822.5M revenue (vs. $756.0M expected), and issued Q2 2026 guidance of $3.34–3.46 EPS and FY2026 guidance of $15.65–16.05 EPS.
• Insiders sold 16,851 shares worth $4.67M over the last quarter (insider ownership 0.48%) while institutional investors own 90.66%; analysts are mixed with an average rating of "Hold" and a $311 average target price.

M&T Bank Corp lifted its holdings in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV - Free Report) by 17,181.1% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 309,158 shares of the network technology company's stock after purchasing an additional 307,369 shares during the quarter. M&T Bank Corp owned about 0.53% of F5 worth $78,916,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Several other hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Evergreen Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in F5 by 259.3% during the 4th quarter. Evergreen Capital Management LLC now owns 3,165 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $808,000 after acquiring an additional 2,284 shares in the last quarter. Tokio Marine Asset Management Co. Ltd. raised its position in shares of F5 by 14.4% during the 4th quarter. Tokio Marine Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 2,545 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $650,000 after acquiring an additional 321 shares in the last quarter. Berger Financial Group Inc raised its position in shares of F5 by 1.0% during the 4th quarter. Berger Financial Group Inc now owns 21,828 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $5,572,000 after acquiring an additional 221 shares in the last quarter. Lipe & Dalton grew its stake in F5 by 6.5% during the 4th quarter. Lipe & Dalton now owns 3,530 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $901,000 after buying an additional 215 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Patton Fund Management Inc. grew its stake in F5 by 13.0% during the 4th quarter. Patton Fund Management Inc. now owns 921 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $235,000 after buying an additional 106 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 90.66% of the company's stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

FFIV has been the topic of several analyst reports. Weiss Ratings upgraded F5 from a "hold (c+)" rating to a "buy (b-)" rating in a research note on Monday, March 30th. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a "hold" rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Wednesday, January 28th. Barclays upped their price objective on F5 from $267.00 to $283.00 and gave the company an "equal weight" rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 28th. Piper Sandler restated an "overweight" rating and issued a $325.00 price objective (up from $295.00) on shares of F5 in a research report on Wednesday, January 28th. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada upped their target price on F5 from $325.00 to $345.00 and gave the company an "outperform" rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 28th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have assigned a Hold rating and two have given a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, F5 presently has an average rating of "Hold" and an average target price of $311.00.

Insider Activity at F5

In other F5 news, Director Michael L. Dreyer sold 3,067 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $282.41, for a total transaction of $866,151.47. Following the transaction, the director owned 1,309 shares of the company's stock, valued at $369,674.69. This trade represents a 70.09% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 3,343 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, January 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $261.87, for a total value of $875,431.41. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 8,060 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,110,672.20. This trade represents a 29.32% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders have sold a total of 16,851 shares of company stock worth $4,667,485 over the last quarter. 0.48% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

F5 Stock Up 0.5%

Shares of NASDAQ FFIV opened at $315.56 on Wednesday. F5, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $223.76 and a fifty-two week high of $346.00. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $288.25 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $274.66. The firm has a market cap of $17.84 billion, a PE ratio of 26.10, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 8.76 and a beta of 0.93.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, January 27th. The network technology company reported $4.45 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $3.63 by $0.82. F5 had a return on equity of 22.08% and a net margin of 22.45%.The firm had revenue of $822.47 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $755.97 million. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $3.84 EPS. F5's quarterly revenue was up 7.3% on a year-over-year basis. F5 has set its Q2 2026 guidance at 3.340-3.460 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 15.650-16.050 EPS. On average, analysts anticipate that F5, Inc. will post 12.29 earnings per share for the current year.

F5 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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