Virtus Advisers LLC Makes New $582,000 Investment in F5, Inc. $FFIV

Virtus Advisers LLC bought a new stake in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm bought 1,400 shares of the network technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $582,000.

Other large investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. Portfolio Design Labs LLC purchased a new position in shares of F5 during the second quarter valued at about $237,000. PCM Encore LLC purchased a new position in shares of F5 during the second quarter valued at approximately $660,000. Vise Technologies Inc. bought a new stake in shares of F5 in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $3,590,000. E Fund Management Co. Ltd. purchased a new stake in shares of F5 in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $643,000. Finally, Edmond DE Rothschild Holding S.A. bought a new position in F5 during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $229,000. 90.66% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

F5 Trading Down 1.3%

Shares of FFIV stock opened at $377.79 on Friday. F5, Inc. has a 12-month low of $223.76 and a 12-month high of $435.00. The stock has a market capitalization of $21.39 billion, a P/E ratio of 30.08, a P/E/G ratio of 3.74 and a beta of 1.03. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $404.06 and its 200 day moving average is $347.60.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last announced its earnings results on Monday, July 27th. The network technology company reported $4.73 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $4.00 by $0.73. The business had revenue of $865.08 million during 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%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 10.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $4.16 EPS. F5 has set its Q4 2026 guidance at 4.140-4.260 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 17.210-17.330 EPS. As a group, equities analysts predict that F5, Inc. will post 13.65 earnings per share for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

FFIV has been the topic of several analyst reports. Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on F5 from $380.00 to $415.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 28th. Barclays raised their price target on F5 from $386.00 to $397.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 28th. Zacks Research cut shares of F5 from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, July 27th. Piper Sandler reissued an “overweight” rating and set a $461.00 price objective (up from $423.00) on shares of F5 in a research report on Tuesday, July 28th. Finally, Evercore upgraded shares of F5 from an “in-line” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $475.00 price objective for the company in a research note on Monday, May 18th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have issued a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, F5 presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $416.62.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other F5 news, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 1,208 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $414.63, for a total value of $500,873.04. Following the transaction, the executive vice president directly owned 8,060 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,341,917.80. This trade represents a 13.03% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, Director Nikhil Ramesh Mehta sold 4,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, July 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $388.95, for a total value of $1,555,800.00. Following the sale, the director owned 7,043 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,739,374.85. This represents a 36.22% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders have sold 15,699 shares of company stock valued at $6,316,411 in 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.