State of Wyoming Increases Holdings in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV)

State of Wyoming raised its stake in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) by 951.6% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 1,651 shares of the network technology company’s stock after buying an additional 1,494 shares during the period. State of Wyoming’s holdings in F5 were worth $415,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in FFIV. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in F5 during the 4th quarter valued at $171,127,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership raised its stake in F5 by 598.3% during the 4th quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 425,275 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $106,944,000 after buying an additional 364,372 shares during the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp raised its stake in F5 by 38.0% during the 4th quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 913,021 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $229,597,000 after buying an additional 251,534 shares during the last quarter. Edge Capital Group LLC purchased a new stake in F5 during the 4th quarter valued at $59,623,000. Finally, Cookson Peirce & Co. Inc. purchased a new stake in F5 during the 4th quarter valued at $53,212,000. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages have weighed in on FFIV. The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their target price on shares of F5 from $257.00 to $295.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 29th. Bank of America boosted their price objective on shares of F5 from $180.00 to $260.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on shares of F5 from $269.00 to $280.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, April 29th. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “buy” rating and set a $320.00 price objective on shares of F5 in a research report on Tuesday, April 29th. Finally, Barclays cut their price objective on shares of F5 from $296.00 to $274.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, April 29th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have issued a hold rating, one has given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $282.56.

F5 Stock Performance

Shares of FFIV stock opened at $286.90 on Wednesday. F5, Inc. has a 52-week low of $164.45 and a 52-week high of $313.00. The firm has a market capitalization of $16.48 billion, a PE ratio of 28.52, a PEG ratio of 3.85 and a beta of 1.00. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $265.82 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $266.83.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Monday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.42 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.11 by $0.31. F5 had a return on equity of 20.98% and a net margin of 20.58%. The business had revenue of $590.16 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $719.91 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $2.91 EPS. F5’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.3% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that F5, Inc. will post 11.2 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 1,347 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $269.03, for a total transaction of $362,383.41. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 20,660 shares in the company, valued at $5,558,159.80. This trade represents a 6.12% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 1,300 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, April 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $265.37, for a total value of $344,981.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 148,647 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $39,446,454.39. The trade was a 0.87% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 9,305 shares of company stock worth $2,561,360. Corporate insiders own 0.52% of the company’s stock.

F5 Company Profile

F5, Inc provides multi-cloud application security and delivery solutions in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific region. The company’s distributed cloud services enable its customers to deploy, secure, and operate applications in any architecture, from on-premises to the public cloud.