F5, Inc. $FFIV Stake Reduced by J. Safra Sarasin Holding AG

J. Safra Sarasin Holding AG cut its stake in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) by 55.8% during the 1st quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 3,182 shares of the network technology company’s stock after selling 4,018 shares during the period. J. Safra Sarasin Holding AG’s holdings in F5 were worth $920,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in FFIV. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in shares of F5 by 1.6% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 7,357,293 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $1,878,023,000 after acquiring an additional 114,533 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp lifted its position in F5 by 1.7% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 3,226,326 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $1,042,716,000 after purchasing an additional 53,712 shares during the last quarter. First Trust Advisors LP boosted its stake in F5 by 68.5% during the 4th quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 2,753,652 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $702,897,000 after purchasing an additional 1,119,291 shares during the period. Jericho Capital Asset Management L.P. acquired a new position in F5 during the 4th quarter valued at about $579,699,000. Finally, Invesco Ltd. grew its position in F5 by 7.5% in the 4th quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 1,537,680 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $392,508,000 after purchasing an additional 106,616 shares during the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have commented on FFIV. Royal Bank Of Canada raised their price target on shares of F5 from $425.00 to $450.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, June 9th. Barclays boosted their price objective on F5 from $292.00 to $386.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, May 29th. Bank of America increased their price objective on F5 from $250.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, May 26th. Zacks Research upgraded F5 from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, June 26th. Finally, Morgan Stanley lifted their target price on F5 from $340.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, May 20th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, five have given a Buy rating, four have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $382.67.

Insider Transactions at F5

In other F5 news, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 1,328 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, May 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $330.58, for a total transaction of $439,010.24. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president directly owned 8,060 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,664,474.80. This trade represents a 14.15% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CFO Edward Cooper Werner sold 2,500 shares of F5 stock in a transaction on Tuesday, June 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $400.00, for a total value of $1,000,000.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer owned 406 shares in the company, valued at approximately $162,400. This trade represents a 86.03% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold a total of 22,579 shares of company stock valued at $7,836,860 over the last three months. 0.48% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

F5 Trading Up 2.4%

FFIV stock opened at $431.26 on Wednesday. F5, Inc. has a 52 week low of $223.76 and a 52 week high of $432.74. The company has a market capitalization of $24.33 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.38, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.94 and a beta of 1.03. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $392.28 and its two-hundred day moving average is $321.73.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.90 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.47 by $0.43. F5 had a net margin of 21.96% and a return on equity of 21.50%. The business had revenue of $811.70 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $783.82 million. During the same period last year, the firm posted $3.42 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 11.0% on a year-over-year basis. F5 has set its Q3 2026 guidance at 3.910-4.030 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 16.250-16.550 EPS. On average, equities research analysts predict that F5, Inc. will post 12.78 earnings per share for the current year.

F5 Company Profile

F5 Inc (NASDAQ:FFIV) specializes in application services and delivery networking, helping organizations ensure the availability, performance and security of their applications. The company’s core offerings include advanced load balancing, traffic management and application security solutions designed to optimize user experiences and protect against threats such as distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and web application exploits.

At the heart of F5’s product portfolio is the BIG-IP platform, which provides a suite of software modules for local and global traffic management, secure web application firewalling and DNS service delivery.