Assenagon Asset Management S.A. Increases Position in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV)

Assenagon Asset Management S.A. boosted its holdings in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) by 34.4% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 170,905 shares of the network technology company’s stock after purchasing an additional 43,782 shares during the quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A.’s holdings in F5 were worth $42,977,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Pacer Advisors Inc. lifted its position in shares of F5 by 6,700.2% during the 2nd quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 848,388 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $146,118,000 after buying an additional 835,912 shares in the last quarter. Wedge Capital Management L L P NC purchased a new position in F5 during the third quarter valued at $61,386,000. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC grew its position in shares of F5 by 1,681.1% in the third quarter. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC now owns 285,639 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $62,898,000 after purchasing an additional 269,602 shares during the period. AQR Capital Management LLC increased its stake in shares of F5 by 48.9% during the second quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 652,972 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $111,932,000 after purchasing an additional 214,351 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Hotchkis & Wiley Capital Management LLC increased its stake in shares of F5 by 3.6% during the third 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 in the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Activity

In other news, Director Alan Higginson sold 825 shares of the business’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 sale, the director now directly owns 9,882 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,369,407.14. The trade was a 7.71 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CFO Francis J. Pelzer sold 600 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now 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. Corporate insiders own 0.58% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

FFIV has been the topic of a number of research reports. StockNews.com raised shares of F5 from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. Barclays lifted their price target on F5 from $214.00 to $246.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. Piper Sandler increased their price objective on F5 from $186.00 to $246.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their target price on shares of F5 from $212.00 to $241.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. Finally, Morgan Stanley increased their target price on shares of F5 from $230.00 to $262.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, December 17th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $239.33.

F5 Trading Up 0.6 %

F5 stock opened at $263.86 on Friday. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $252.27 and a 200 day moving average price of $219.65. F5, Inc. has a 12-month low of $159.01 and a 12-month high of $266.06. The stock has a market cap of $15.47 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.60, a PEG ratio of 3.44 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 firm had revenue of $747.00 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $730.43 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $2.76 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts forecast that F5, Inc. will post 11.01 EPS for the current year.

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

F5 Company 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.