JPMorgan Chase & Co. Has $90.09 Million Stock Holdings in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV)

JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased its position in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) by 24.7% in the third quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 409,130 shares of the network technology company’s stock after purchasing an additional 81,005 shares during the quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s holdings in F5 were worth $90,090,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in FFIV. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC bought a new stake in F5 during the third quarter worth about $28,000. Kathleen S. Wright Associates Inc. acquired a new position in shares of F5 in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $32,000. Quest Partners LLC grew its position in F5 by 9,100.0% during the 2nd quarter. Quest Partners LLC now owns 184 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $32,000 after acquiring an additional 182 shares during the last quarter. Venturi Wealth Management LLC increased its holdings in F5 by 79.8% during the 3rd quarter. Venturi Wealth Management LLC now owns 320 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $70,000 after purchasing an additional 142 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Denver PWM LLC bought a new position in F5 in the 2nd quarter valued at $56,000. 90.66% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other F5 news, Director Alan Higginson sold 825 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $239.77, for a total value of $197,810.25. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 9,882 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,369,407.14. This represents a 7.71 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CFO Francis J. Pelzer sold 600 shares of F5 stock in a transaction on Monday, October 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $217.67, for a total transaction of $130,602.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 29,825 shares in the company, valued at approximately $6,492,007.75. This represents a 1.97 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Company insiders own 0.58% of the company’s stock.

F5 Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ FFIV opened at $251.75 on Friday. F5, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $159.01 and a fifty-two week high of $264.50. The firm has a market capitalization of $14.76 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.33, a P/E/G ratio of 3.52 and a beta of 1.06. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $247.59 and its 200 day simple moving average is $213.81.

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

F5 declared that its board has authorized a stock buyback program on Monday, October 28th that allows the company to buyback $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization allows the network technology company to purchase up to 7.9% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are typically an indication that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have recently commented on FFIV. Royal Bank of Canada increased their target price on F5 from $205.00 to $240.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their price objective on shares of F5 from $212.00 to $241.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on shares of F5 from $230.00 to $262.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, December 17th. Piper Sandler increased their price target on shares of F5 from $186.00 to $246.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. Finally, Barclays raised their price target on shares of F5 from $214.00 to $246.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $237.11.

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.