Harel Insurance Investments & Financial Services Ltd. Boosts Stock Holdings in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV)

Harel Insurance Investments & Financial Services Ltd. lifted its holdings in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) by 80.3% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 977 shares of the network technology company’s stock after acquiring an additional 435 shares during the quarter. Harel Insurance Investments & Financial Services Ltd.’s holdings in F5 were worth $246,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of FFIV. Profund Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in shares of F5 by 6.3% in the second quarter. Profund Advisors LLC now owns 1,185 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $204,000 after acquiring an additional 70 shares during the period. Public Sector Pension Investment Board boosted its stake in F5 by 65.6% in the 2nd quarter. Public Sector Pension Investment Board now owns 2,219 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $382,000 after purchasing an additional 879 shares during the period. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp boosted its stake in F5 by 58.2% in the 2nd quarter. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp now owns 11,269 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $1,941,000 after purchasing an additional 4,147 shares during the period. Squarepoint Ops LLC grew its holdings in F5 by 572.0% during the 2nd quarter. Squarepoint Ops LLC now owns 61,119 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $10,527,000 after buying an additional 52,024 shares in the last quarter. Finally, AXA S.A. increased its position in shares of F5 by 832.6% during the second quarter. AXA S.A. now owns 12,133 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $2,090,000 after buying an additional 10,832 shares during the period. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

FFIV has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. Evercore ISI boosted their price objective on shares of F5 from $240.00 to $270.00 and gave the company an “in-line” rating in a research note on Friday, January 17th. The Goldman Sachs Group upped their price target on shares of F5 from $212.00 to $241.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Piper Sandler lifted 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. Barclays boosted their target price on F5 from $214.00 to $246.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” 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 equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, one has issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $251.25.

F5 Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ FFIV opened at $272.99 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $16.00 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.56, a PEG ratio of 3.68 and a beta of 1.06. F5, Inc. has a one year low of $159.01 and a one year high of $274.64. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $255.88 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $224.38.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last released its 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. The company had revenue of $747.00 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $730.43 million. F5 had a net margin of 20.13% and a return on equity of 20.80%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $2.76 EPS. As a group, equities analysts expect that F5, Inc. will post 11.01 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

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

Insider Transactions at F5

In other F5 news, Director Alan Higginson sold 825 shares of F5 stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 19th. The stock was 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 of the company’s stock, valued at $2,369,407.14. The trade was a 7.71 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Company insiders own 0.58% of the company’s stock.

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.