Caprock Group LLC Makes New Investment in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV)

Caprock Group LLC purchased a new stake in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund purchased 903 shares of the network technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $227,000.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC bought a new stake in F5 during the third quarter valued at approximately $28,000. Kathleen S. Wright Associates Inc. bought a new stake in shares of F5 during the 3rd quarter valued at $32,000. Friedenthal Financial purchased a new stake in shares of F5 in the 4th quarter worth $50,000. Venturi Wealth Management LLC raised its holdings in F5 by 79.8% in the 3rd quarter. Venturi Wealth Management LLC now owns 320 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $70,000 after purchasing an additional 142 shares during the period. Finally, Point72 Hong Kong Ltd purchased a new position in F5 during the third quarter valued at $84,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts have commented on FFIV shares. The Goldman Sachs Group upped their price target on F5 from $257.00 to $295.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 29th. Barclays raised their target price on shares of F5 from $246.00 to $296.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on shares of F5 from $225.00 to $250.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. Bank of America raised 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. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada upped their target price on shares of F5 from $260.00 to $310.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 29th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have issued a hold rating, one has assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, F5 has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $295.00.

Insider Buying and Selling at F5

In other news, insider Lyra Amber Schramm sold 253 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Saturday, February 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $297.26, for a total transaction of $75,206.78. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 200 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $59,452. This represents a 55.85 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, Director Alan Higginson sold 825 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $239.77, for a total transaction of $197,810.25. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 9,882 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,369,407.14. This trade represents a 7.71 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 5,899 shares of company stock valued at $1,682,977 in the last 90 days. Insiders own 0.52% of the company’s stock.

F5 Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:FFIV opened at $307.44 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $17.83 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.56, a P/E/G ratio of 3.97 and a beta of 1.06. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $264.35 and a 200 day moving average price of $231.30. F5, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $159.01 and a fifty-two week high of $308.32.

F5 declared that its Board of Directors has approved a share buyback plan on Monday, October 28th that allows the company to repurchase $1.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization allows the network technology company to buy up to 7.9% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are generally an indication that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

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.