Daiwa Securities Group Inc. Sells 4,826 Shares of F5, Inc. $FFIV

Daiwa Securities Group Inc. reduced its holdings in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) by 34.2% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 9,292 shares of the network technology company’s stock after selling 4,826 shares during the quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc.’s holdings in F5 were worth $2,372,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Barclays PLC grew its stake in F5 by 51.7% in the third quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 310,368 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $100,308,000 after acquiring an additional 105,738 shares during the period. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in F5 in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $205,706,000. Alberta Investment Management Corp grew its stake in F5 by 173.3% in the third quarter. Alberta Investment Management Corp now owns 8,200 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $2,650,000 after acquiring an additional 5,200 shares during the period. JPMorgan Chase & Co. grew its stake in F5 by 11.5% in the third quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 381,350 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $123,249,000 after acquiring an additional 39,445 shares during the period. Finally, HighTower Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in F5 in the third quarter valued at approximately $1,571,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

F5 Stock Down 0.2%

Shares of NASDAQ:FFIV opened at $395.23 on Wednesday. The stock has a market cap of $22.30 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.42, a PEG ratio of 9.12 and a beta of 1.04. F5, Inc. has a 12-month low of $223.76 and a 12-month high of $411.52. The business’s 50 day moving average is $342.74 and its 200 day moving average is $294.44.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last announced its earnings results 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. The company had revenue of $811.70 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $783.82 million. F5 had a return on equity of 21.50% and a net margin of 21.96%.F5’s quarterly revenue was up 11.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $3.42 earnings per share. F5 has set its Q3 2026 guidance at 3.910-4.030 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 16.250-16.550 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts expect that F5, Inc. will post 12.78 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity at F5

In related news, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 3,783 shares of F5 stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, May 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $337.39, for a total transaction of $1,276,346.37. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 146,989 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $49,592,618.71. The trade was a 2.51% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CFO Edward Cooper Werner sold 2,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, June 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $400.00, for a total value of $1,000,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer directly owned 406 shares in the company, valued at approximately $162,400. This represents a 86.03% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders have sold 21,579 shares of company stock valued at $7,437,510 over the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 0.48% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

FFIV has been the subject of a number of research reports. Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on F5 from $340.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, May 20th. Bank of America raised their price objective on F5 from $250.00 to $300.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, May 26th. Weiss Ratings raised F5 from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a research note on Monday, March 30th. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a research note on Wednesday, April 29th. Finally, Barclays raised their price objective on F5 from $292.00 to $386.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, May 29th. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $382.67.

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.