Lipe & Dalton Increases Stake in F5, Inc. $FFIV

Lipe & Dalton lifted its holdings in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) by 37.4% during the 1st quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 4,850 shares of the network technology company’s stock after buying an additional 1,320 shares during the quarter. Lipe & Dalton’s holdings in F5 were worth $1,403,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other large investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Jericho Capital Asset Management L.P. bought a new stake in shares of F5 in the 4th quarter valued at about $579,699,000. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. grew its position in F5 by 15,103.5% during the 4th quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. now owns 1,170,216 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $298,709,000 after acquiring an additional 1,162,519 shares during the last quarter. First Trust Advisors LP grew its position in F5 by 68.5% during the 4th quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 2,753,652 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $702,897,000 after acquiring an additional 1,119,291 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new position in F5 in the 4th quarter worth approximately $205,706,000. Finally, Deutsche Bank AG increased its stake in 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 purchasing an additional 610,437 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

Insider Transactions at F5

In other news, EVP Chad Michael Whalen sold 6,200 shares of F5 stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $350.19, for a total transaction of $2,171,178.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president owned 20,832 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,295,158.08. The trade was a 22.94% decrease in their position. 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, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 1,328 shares of F5 stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, May 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $330.58, for a total value of $439,010.24. Following the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 8,060 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,664,474.80. The trade was a 14.15% 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. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 22,579 shares of company stock worth $7,836,860. 0.48% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

FFIV has been the subject of several recent research reports. Piper Sandler boosted their price objective on F5 from $356.00 to $423.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, May 29th. Needham & Company LLC restated a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a report on Wednesday, April 29th. Barclays lifted their target price on shares of F5 from $292.00 to $386.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, May 29th. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “buy (b-)” rating on shares of F5 in a report on Friday, June 26th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price target on shares of F5 from $355.00 to $365.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 29th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, five have issued a Buy rating, four have issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $382.67.

F5 Stock Performance

FFIV opened at $419.14 on Thursday. F5, Inc. has a 52-week low of $223.76 and a 52-week high of $427.54. The stock has a market capitalization of $23.65 billion, a PE ratio of 34.38, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.89 and a beta of 1.03. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $383.95 and its 200-day moving average price is $316.99.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, April 28th. The network technology company reported $3.90 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.47 by $0.43. F5 had a return on equity of 21.50% and a net margin of 21.96%.The company had revenue of $811.70 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $783.82 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $3.42 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter 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. Research analysts forecast that F5, Inc. will post 12.78 EPS for the current fiscal year.

F5 Company 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.