Hsbc Holdings PLC Acquires 115,639 Shares of F5, Inc. $FFIV

Hsbc Holdings PLC boosted its stake in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) by 24.8% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 581,855 shares of the network technology company’s stock after purchasing an additional 115,639 shares during the quarter. Hsbc Holdings PLC’s holdings in F5 were worth $148,580,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Jericho Capital Asset Management L.P. acquired a new position in F5 in the fourth quarter valued at about $579,699,000. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. raised its stake in shares of F5 by 15,103.5% in the fourth quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. now owns 1,170,216 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $298,709,000 after acquiring an additional 1,162,519 shares during the last quarter. First Trust Advisors LP raised its stake in shares of F5 by 68.5% in the fourth quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 2,753,652 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $702,897,000 after acquiring an additional 1,119,291 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of F5 in the 4th quarter worth approximately $205,706,000. Finally, Deutsche Bank AG boosted its holdings in shares of F5 by 175.2% in the 4th quarter. Deutsche Bank AG now owns 958,947 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $244,781,000 after acquiring an additional 610,437 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms recently weighed in on FFIV. Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a report on Wednesday, April 29th. Evercore upgraded F5 from an “in-line” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $475.00 target price for the company in a research note on Monday, May 18th. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “buy (b-)” rating on shares of F5 in a research report on Friday, June 26th. Zacks Research raised shares of F5 from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Friday, June 26th. Finally, Barclays increased their price objective on shares of F5 from $292.00 to $386.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, May 29th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, six have issued a Buy rating, four have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, F5 presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $382.67.

F5 Stock Performance

FFIV opened at $408.14 on Friday. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $376.86 and its two-hundred day moving average is $313.24. The firm has a market cap of $23.03 billion, a PE ratio of 33.48, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.79 and a beta of 1.03. F5, Inc. has a twelve month low of $223.76 and a twelve month high of $427.54.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last announced its quarterly 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. F5 had a net margin of 21.96% and a return on equity of 21.50%. The company had revenue of $811.70 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $783.82 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $3.42 EPS. The firm’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. Equities analysts forecast that F5, Inc. will post 12.78 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity at F5

In other news, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 3,783 shares of F5 stock in a transaction dated 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 in the company, valued at $49,592,618.71. The trade was a 2.51% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 1,328 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, May 5th. The shares were 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 owned 8,060 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,664,474.80. This trade represents a 14.15% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders have sold a total of 22,579 shares of company stock valued at $7,836,860 over the last 90 days. Insiders own 0.48% of the company’s stock.

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.