BNP Paribas Financial Markets Sells 25,118 Shares of F5, Inc. $FFIV

BNP Paribas Financial Markets lowered its stake in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) by 16.5% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The firm owned 127,523 shares of the network technology company’s stock after selling 25,118 shares during the quarter. BNP Paribas Financial Markets’ holdings in F5 were worth $32,552,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Barclays PLC grew its position in F5 by 51.7% during the third quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 310,368 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $100,308,000 after buying an additional 105,738 shares during the period. Alberta Investment Management Corp grew its position in F5 by 173.3% during 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 buying an additional 5,200 shares during the period. JPMorgan Chase & Co. grew its position in F5 by 11.5% during the third quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 381,350 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $123,249,000 after buying an additional 39,445 shares during the period. HighTower Advisors LLC bought a new position in F5 during the third quarter valued at about $1,571,000. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group Inc. grew its position in F5 by 127.0% during the fourth quarter. Jefferies Financial Group Inc. now owns 34,529 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $8,814,000 after buying an additional 19,315 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at F5

In other news, CFO Edward Cooper Werner sold 2,500 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, June 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $400.00, for a total value of $1,000,000.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer directly owned 406 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $162,400. This represents a 86.03% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 3,783 shares of the 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 completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 146,989 shares in the company, valued at approximately $49,592,618.71. The trade was a 2.51% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 21,579 shares of company stock valued at $7,437,510. Insiders own 0.48% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms recently weighed in on FFIV. Barclays increased their price target on shares of F5 from $292.00 to $386.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, May 29th. Bank of America increased their price target on shares of F5 from $250.00 to $300.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, May 26th. Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a report on Wednesday, April 29th. Royal Bank Of Canada reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price objective on shares of F5 in a report on Friday, May 29th. Finally, Weiss Ratings raised shares of F5 from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a report on Monday, March 30th. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $379.89.

F5 Stock Up 0.7%

NASDAQ FFIV opened at $408.66 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $23.06 billion, a PE ratio of 33.52, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 9.33 and a beta of 1.04. F5, Inc. has a 52 week low of $223.76 and a 52 week high of $411.52. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $336.50 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $290.88.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.90 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.47 by $0.43. The business had revenue of $811.70 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $783.82 million. F5 had a net margin of 21.96% and a return on equity of 21.50%. The company’s revenue was up 11.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior 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 anticipate that F5, Inc. will post 12.78 EPS for the current year.

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.