Brandes Investment Partners LP Reduces Stock Position in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV)

Brandes Investment Partners LP cut its holdings in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) by 15.0% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 12,473 shares of the network technology company’s stock after selling 2,195 shares during the quarter. Brandes Investment Partners LP’s holdings in F5 were worth $3,137,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the business. Hotchkis & Wiley Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in F5 by 3.6% during the 3rd quarter. Hotchkis & Wiley Capital Management LLC now owns 5,489,388 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $1,208,763,000 after purchasing an additional 191,020 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its holdings in shares of F5 by 0.5% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 3,187,222 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $701,825,000 after acquiring an additional 16,663 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of F5 by 8.0% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,573,995 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $345,560,000 after acquiring an additional 117,080 shares during the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased its holdings in shares of F5 by 24.7% in the 3rd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 409,130 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $90,090,000 after acquiring an additional 81,005 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Retirement Systems of Alabama increased its holdings in shares of F5 by 7.7% in the 3rd quarter. Retirement Systems of Alabama now owns 377,387 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $83,101,000 after acquiring an additional 27,124 shares during the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have recently weighed in on FFIV. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their price target on F5 from $260.00 to $310.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 29th. Barclays boosted their price target on F5 from $246.00 to $296.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 29th. Needham & Company LLC boosted their price target on F5 from $285.00 to $360.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 29th. Bank of America boosted their price target on F5 from $180.00 to $260.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Finally, Evercore ISI upped their price objective on F5 from $240.00 to $270.00 and gave the stock an “in-line” rating in a research note on Friday, January 17th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating, one has given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $295.00.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, Director Marianne Budnik sold 728 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $304.45, for a total value of $221,639.60. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 1,770 shares in the company, valued at $538,876.50. This represents a 29.14 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, EVP Scot Frazier Rogers sold 3,486 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $293.18, for a total value of $1,022,025.48. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 20,075 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,885,588.50. This represents a 14.80 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 16,932 shares of company stock worth $4,965,150. 0.52% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

F5 Stock Performance

Shares of FFIV stock opened at $262.46 on Friday. F5, Inc. has a 1 year low of $159.01 and a 1 year high of $313.00. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $282.85 and a two-hundred day moving average of $249.90. The firm has a market capitalization of $15.13 billion, a PE ratio of 26.09, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.85 and a beta of 1.10.

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.