F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) Shares Acquired by D. E. Shaw & Co. Inc.

D. E. Shaw & Co. Inc. boosted its position in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) by 26.3% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 227,487 shares of the network technology company’s stock after purchasing an additional 47,395 shares during the quarter. D. E. Shaw & Co. Inc.’s holdings in F5 were worth $57,206,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in FFIV. Deutsche Bank AG lifted its holdings in shares of F5 by 10.9% in the fourth quarter. Deutsche Bank AG now owns 300,464 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $75,558,000 after buying an additional 29,453 shares during the period. DZ BANK AG Deutsche Zentral Genossenschafts Bank Frankfurt am Main bought a new position in shares of F5 during the 4th quarter valued at about $1,108,000. Colonial Trust Co SC grew its stake in shares of F5 by 5.2% in the 4th quarter. Colonial Trust Co SC now owns 685 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $172,000 after purchasing an additional 34 shares during the last quarter. Concentric Capital Strategies LP raised its holdings in shares of F5 by 608.5% in the 4th quarter. Concentric Capital Strategies LP now owns 61,222 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $15,395,000 after purchasing an additional 52,581 shares in the last quarter. Finally, CoreCap Advisors LLC lifted its stake in F5 by 314.8% during the fourth quarter. CoreCap Advisors LLC now owns 365 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $92,000 after purchasing an additional 277 shares during the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insider Transactions at F5

In related news, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 1,347 shares of F5 stock in a transaction on Friday, May 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $269.03, for a total value of $362,383.41. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 20,660 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,558,159.80. The trade was a 6.12 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 6,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $303.06, for a total transaction of $1,969,890.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 151,247 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $45,836,915.82. This represents a 4.12 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 15,805 shares of company stock valued at $4,531,250 in the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.52% of the company’s stock.

F5 Stock Performance

FFIV stock opened at $269.51 on Friday. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $263.90 and a 200 day simple moving average of $263.78. F5, Inc. has a 52 week low of $164.45 and a 52 week high of $313.00. The stock has a market cap of $15.48 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.79, a P/E/G ratio of 3.85 and a beta of 1.00.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Monday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.42 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.11 by $0.31. F5 had a net margin of 20.58% and a return on equity of 20.98%. The business had revenue of $590.16 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $719.91 million. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $2.91 EPS. F5’s revenue was up 7.3% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts predict that F5, Inc. will post 11.2 EPS for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts have issued reports on FFIV shares. StockNews.com cut F5 from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 30th. Morgan Stanley upped their target price on F5 from $269.00 to $280.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, April 29th. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their price target on F5 from $257.00 to $295.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their price objective on shares of F5 from $296.00 to $285.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, April 17th. Finally, William Blair restated an “outperform” rating on shares of F5 in a report on Tuesday, April 29th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $282.56.

F5 Company 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.