Grimes & Company Inc. Grows Position in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV)

Grimes & Company Inc. increased its position in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) by 2.9% during the first quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 58,790 shares of the network technology company’s stock after buying an additional 1,655 shares during the period. Grimes & Company Inc. owned about 0.10% of F5 worth $11,146,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Commerce Bank boosted its holdings in F5 by 3.1% in the fourth quarter. Commerce Bank now owns 1,912 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $342,000 after purchasing an additional 57 shares in the last quarter. Optimum Investment Advisors boosted its holdings in F5 by 5.5% in the fourth quarter. Optimum Investment Advisors now owns 1,150 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $206,000 after purchasing an additional 60 shares in the last quarter. Cary Street Partners Investment Advisory LLC boosted its holdings in F5 by 15.9% in the third quarter. Cary Street Partners Investment Advisory LLC now owns 518 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $83,000 after purchasing an additional 71 shares in the last quarter. Addison Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in F5 by 28.0% in the fourth quarter. Addison Advisors LLC now owns 357 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $64,000 after purchasing an additional 78 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Czech National Bank boosted its holdings in F5 by 0.8% in the fourth quarter. Czech National Bank now owns 10,457 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $1,872,000 after purchasing an additional 84 shares in the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other F5 news, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 851 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, May 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $167.53, for a total value of $142,568.03. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 15,504 shares in the company, valued at $2,597,385.12. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. In other news, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 851 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, May 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $167.53, for a total value of $142,568.03. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 15,504 shares in the company, valued at $2,597,385.12. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 1,450 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, April 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $188.85, for a total value of $273,832.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 121,801 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $23,002,118.85. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 11,766 shares of company stock worth $2,016,700. 0.58% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on FFIV. Piper Sandler reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $167.00 price target (down from $187.00) on shares of F5 in a report on Tuesday, April 30th. Evercore ISI decreased their price objective on F5 from $200.00 to $180.00 and set an “in-line” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, April 30th. Barclays decreased their price objective on F5 from $206.00 to $189.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, April 30th. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $220.00 price objective on shares of F5 in a report on Tuesday, April 30th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada decreased their price objective on F5 from $204.00 to $182.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, April 30th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating, two have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $185.10.

F5 Stock Up 0.6 %

Shares of NASDAQ FFIV traded up $1.03 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $172.23. 668,624 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 554,116. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $170.81 and a 200-day simple moving average of $179.39. F5, Inc. has a 1-year low of $142.16 and a 1-year high of $199.49. The firm has a market cap of $10.09 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.63, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.27 and a beta of 1.09.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Monday, April 29th. The network technology company reported $2.91 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.88 by $0.03. The firm had revenue of $681.00 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $685.47 million. F5 had a return on equity of 21.41% and a net margin of 17.91%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 3.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company earned $1.70 earnings per share. Analysts anticipate that F5, Inc. will post 9.64 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

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.