Monarch Capital Management Inc. Sells 1,255 Shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV)

Monarch Capital Management Inc. lowered its stake in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) by 7.8% during the first quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 14,786 shares of the network technology company’s stock after selling 1,255 shares during the period. Monarch Capital Management Inc.’s holdings in F5 were worth $3,937,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of FFIV. GAMMA Investing LLC lifted its stake in F5 by 34,698.9% in the first quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 746,089 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $198,661,000 after buying an additional 743,945 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new position in F5 in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $171,127,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership lifted its stake in F5 by 598.3% in the fourth 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 in the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp lifted its stake in F5 by 38.0% in the fourth 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 in the last quarter. Finally, Edge Capital Group LLC acquired a new position in F5 during the fourth quarter worth $59,623,000. Institutional investors own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

FFIV has been the topic of several analyst reports. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “buy” rating and set a $320.00 price target on shares of F5 in a research report on Tuesday, April 29th. Morgan Stanley raised their price target on F5 from $269.00 to $280.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, April 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their price target on F5 from $296.00 to $285.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, April 17th. William Blair restated an “outperform” rating on shares of F5 in a research note on Tuesday, April 29th. Finally, Wall Street Zen downgraded shares of F5 from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, May 22nd. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have issued a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $282.56.

F5 Price Performance

NASDAQ:FFIV opened at $293.66 on Wednesday. F5, Inc. has a one year low of $164.67 and a one year high of $313.00. The company has a market cap of $16.87 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.19, a P/E/G ratio of 3.85 and a beta of 1.00. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $271.79 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $271.70.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last released its quarterly earnings results on Monday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.42 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.11 by $0.31. F5 had a net margin of 20.58% and a return on equity of 20.98%. The business had revenue of $590.16 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $719.91 million. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $2.91 earnings per share. F5’s revenue was up 7.3% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts expect that F5, Inc. will post 11.2 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity at F5

In related news, Director Marianne Budnik sold 1,872 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, March 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $260.72, for a total transaction of $488,067.84. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 1,207 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $314,689.04. This represents a 60.80% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, Director Michael L. Dreyer sold 1,800 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $285.96, for a total transaction of $514,728.00. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 4,376 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,251,360.96. This represents a 29.15% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 8,891 shares of company stock worth $2,418,732. Corporate insiders own 0.52% of the company’s stock.

About F5

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.