Swedbank AB Grows Stake in F5, Inc. $FFIV

Key Points

• Swedbank AB boosted its F5 stake by 1.8% in the fourth quarter, ending with 207,206 shares valued at about $52.9 million.
• Institutional ownership in F5 remains heavy, with hedge funds and other institutions holding 90.66% of the stock. Several firms added positions, including William Blair’s new large stake and Jefferies’ 127% increase.
• F5 reported strong quarterly results, beating EPS and revenue estimates, while analysts remain mixed overall with a Hold consensus and an average price target of $353. Insiders also sold shares recently, including the CTO and CFO under pre-arranged trading plans.

Swedbank AB increased its holdings in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV - Free Report) by 1.8% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 207,206 shares of the network technology company's stock after purchasing an additional 3,668 shares during the quarter. Swedbank AB owned approximately 0.36% of F5 worth $52,891,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the business. William Blair Investment Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of F5 during the fourth quarter worth about $140,460,000. Jefferies Financial Group Inc. grew 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. Meiji Yasuda Asset Management Co Ltd. grew 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 worth $247,000 after purchasing an additional 41 shares in the last quarter. Global Retirement Partners LLC grew its position in shares of F5 by 258.4% during the fourth quarter. Global Retirement Partners LLC now owns 1,190 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $304,000 after purchasing an additional 858 shares in the last quarter. Finally, ABN Amro Investment Solutions purchased a new stake in shares of F5 during the fourth quarter worth about $473,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 90.66% of the company's stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several analysts recently issued reports on the company. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their target price on F5 from $285.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock a "neutral" rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 28th. Barclays increased their target price on F5 from $283.00 to $292.00 and gave the stock an "equal weight" rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 29th. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a "hold" rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Wednesday, April 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on F5 from $355.00 to $365.00 and gave the stock an "overweight" rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 29th. Finally, Weiss Ratings upgraded F5 from a "hold (c+)" rating to a "buy (b-)" rating in a report on Monday, March 30th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average target price of $353.00.

Insider Buying and Selling at F5

In other news, CTO Kunal Anand sold 3,123 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction that occurred 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 trade represents a 20.39% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CFO Edward Cooper Werner sold 1,500 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, May 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $350.00, for a total value of $525,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer directly owned 2,906 shares of the company's stock, valued at $1,017,100. The trade was a 34.04% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders have sold a total of 24,491 shares of company stock worth $7,966,227 over the last three months. 0.48% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

F5 Price Performance

NASDAQ FFIV opened at $393.63 on Monday. The stock has a market capitalization of $22.21 billion, a PE ratio of 32.29, a P/E/G ratio of 9.05 and a beta of 1.00. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $316.75 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $281.09. F5, Inc. has a 1-year low of $223.76 and a 1-year high of $395.77.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.90 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.47 by $0.43. The business 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 revenue for the quarter was up 11.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $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, analysts anticipate that F5, Inc. will post 12.79 EPS for the current fiscal 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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