KBC Group NV Lowers Stock Position in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV)

KBC Group NV decreased its holdings in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) by 35.9% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 30,931 shares of the network technology company’s stock after selling 17,325 shares during the quarter. KBC Group NV’s holdings in F5 were worth $7,778,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other large investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Public Sector Pension Investment Board boosted its stake in shares of F5 by 65.6% during the second quarter. Public Sector Pension Investment Board now owns 2,219 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $382,000 after buying an additional 879 shares during the period. MBB Public Markets I LLC acquired a new stake in F5 during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $592,000. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company grew its stake in shares of F5 by 1.4% in the 2nd quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 45,848 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $7,896,000 after purchasing an additional 621 shares during the last quarter. Creative Planning increased its holdings in shares of F5 by 4.1% in the second quarter. Creative Planning now owns 3,994 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $688,000 after purchasing an additional 156 shares during the period. Finally, Brown Financial Advisors purchased a new stake in shares of F5 during the second quarter worth approximately $66,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

F5 Trading Up 11.4 %

Shares of NASDAQ FFIV opened at $300.46 on Thursday. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $258.11 and its 200 day moving average price is $226.55. F5, Inc. has a 52 week low of $159.01 and a 52 week high of $308.00. The stock has a market cap of $17.61 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.43, a PEG ratio of 3.68 and a beta of 1.06.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last released its quarterly earnings results on Monday, October 28th. The network technology company reported $3.67 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.45 by $0.22. F5 had a net margin of 20.13% and a return on equity of 20.80%. The business had revenue of $747.00 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $730.43 million. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $2.76 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts expect that F5, Inc. will post 11.01 earnings per share for the current year.

F5 announced that its board has approved a stock buyback program on Monday, October 28th that permits the company to repurchase $1.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization permits the network technology company to repurchase up to 7.9% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are often a sign that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research firms recently weighed in on FFIV. Piper Sandler lifted their price objective on shares of F5 from $246.00 to $304.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday. Morgan Stanley boosted their price target on shares of F5 from $262.00 to $310.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Barclays raised their price objective on shares of F5 from $246.00 to $296.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on F5 from $225.00 to $250.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. Finally, StockNews.com raised F5 from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, one has assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, F5 presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $299.38.

Insider Buying and Selling at F5

In other F5 news, Director Alan Higginson sold 825 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $239.77, for a total value of $197,810.25. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 9,882 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,369,407.14. This represents a 7.71 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. 0.58% of the stock is owned by insiders.

F5 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.