Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio Buys New Holdings in F5, Inc. $FFIV

Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio purchased a new position in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor purchased 17,511 shares of the network technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,284,000.

A number of other large investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Capstone Investment Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in F5 during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $683,000. Proficio Capital Partners LLC acquired a new position in F5 during the second quarter valued at approximately $392,000. Pure Financial Advisors LLC acquired a new position in F5 during the second quarter valued at approximately $278,000. Corient Private Wealth LP purchased a new stake in F5 during the second quarter worth approximately $21,102,000. Finally, Bank of America Corp DE acquired a new stake in shares of F5 in the second quarter worth $70,355,000. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling at F5

In other F5 news, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 1,208 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $414.63, for a total transaction of $500,873.04. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president owned 8,060 shares in the company, valued at $3,341,917.80. This trade represents a 13.03% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 3,782 shares of F5 stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $412.44, for a total value of $1,559,848.08. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 146,989 shares in the company, valued at $60,624,143.16. This represents a 2.51% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 13,199 shares of company stock valued at $5,316,411. Company insiders own 0.48% of the company’s stock.

F5 Trading Down 2.8%

Shares of FFIV stock opened at $395.72 on Wednesday. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $404.76 and a 200-day simple moving average of $354.15. The company has a market capitalization of $22.41 billion, a PE ratio of 31.51, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.98 and a beta of 1.03. F5, Inc. has a twelve month low of $223.76 and a twelve month high of $435.00.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last released its quarterly earnings results on Monday, July 27th. The network technology company reported $4.73 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $4.00 by $0.73. F5 had a net margin of 21.95% and a return on equity of 21.54%. The firm had revenue of $865.08 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $834.60 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $4.16 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 10.9% on a year-over-year basis. 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 predict that F5, Inc. will post 13.65 EPS for the current year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms recently weighed in on FFIV. Evercore upgraded shares of F5 from an “in-line” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $475.00 target price on the stock in a report on Monday, May 18th. Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on F5 from $380.00 to $415.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 28th. Needham & Company LLC restated a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a research note on Tuesday, July 28th. Piper Sandler reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and issued a $461.00 target price (up from $423.00) on shares of F5 in a research report on Tuesday, July 28th. Finally, Zacks Research lowered F5 from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, July 27th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $416.62.

About F5

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.