Lazard Asset Management LLC Reduces Stock Position in F5, Inc. $FFIV

Lazard Asset Management LLC lessened its holdings in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) by 61.6% during the 1st quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 5,795 shares of the network technology company’s stock after selling 9,281 shares during the quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC’s holdings in F5 were worth $1,677,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. Millennium Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of F5 by 166.5% in the first quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 62,906 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $16,750,000 after purchasing an additional 39,305 shares during the last quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in F5 by 1,281.4% during the 1st quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC now owns 967 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $257,000 after buying an additional 897 shares in the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. boosted its position in F5 by 38.4% in the 1st quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 298,297 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $79,428,000 after buying an additional 82,835 shares during the period. Focus Partners Wealth purchased a new stake in F5 in the 1st quarter valued at about $257,000. Finally, Geneos Wealth Management Inc. boosted its position in F5 by 288.1% in the 1st quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 163 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $43,000 after buying an additional 121 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

F5 Stock Performance

Shares of FFIV opened at $406.35 on Tuesday. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $401.82 and a 200-day moving average price of $335.32. F5, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $223.76 and a fifty-two week high of $435.00. The stock has a market capitalization of $22.93 billion, a PE ratio of 32.35, a PEG ratio of 3.97 and a beta of 1.03.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Monday, July 27th. The network technology company reported $4.73 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $4.00 by $0.73. The company had revenue of $865.08 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $834.60 million. F5 had a net margin of 21.95% and a return on equity of 21.54%. F5’s revenue was up 10.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company posted $4.16 earnings per share. F5 has set its Q4 2026 guidance at 4.140-4.260 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 17.210-17.330 EPS. Equities research analysts forecast that F5, Inc. will post 13.53 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, Director Elizabeth Buse sold 1,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, June 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $399.35, for a total transaction of $399,350.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director directly owned 4,947 shares in the company, valued at $1,975,584.45. This represents a 16.82% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, EVP Chad Michael Whalen sold 6,200 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $350.19, for a total transaction of $2,171,178.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president owned 20,832 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,295,158.08. This represents a 22.94% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 15,200 shares of company stock valued at $5,651,328. 0.48% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts have recently commented on the stock. Bank of America raised their target price on shares of F5 from $250.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, May 26th. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a research note on Tuesday, July 28th. Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on F5 from $380.00 to $415.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 28th. Zacks Research lowered F5 from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, July 27th. Finally, Weiss Ratings reiterated a “buy (b-)” rating on shares of F5 in a report on Friday, June 26th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $416.62.

F5 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.