Louisiana State Employees Retirement System Has $780,000 Stock Position in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV)

Louisiana State Employees Retirement System reduced its holdings in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) by 6.1% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm owned 3,100 shares of the network technology company’s stock after selling 200 shares during the quarter. Louisiana State Employees Retirement System’s holdings in F5 were worth $780,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Creative Planning increased its position in shares of F5 by 8.7% during the third quarter. Creative Planning now owns 4,342 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $956,000 after buying an additional 348 shares during the period. Bleakley Financial Group LLC acquired a new stake in shares of F5 during the third quarter worth $211,000. Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management Company Ltd increased its position in shares of F5 by 14.0% during the third quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management Company Ltd now owns 7,404 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $1,630,000 after buying an additional 909 shares during the period. Blue Trust Inc. increased its position in shares of F5 by 156.0% during the third quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 617 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $136,000 after buying an additional 376 shares during the period. Finally, Northwest Investment Counselors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of F5 during the third quarter worth $28,000. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

FFIV has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. Needham & Company LLC increased their price objective on shares of F5 from $285.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 29th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of F5 from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. Royal Bank of Canada increased their target price on shares of F5 from $260.00 to $310.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on shares of F5 from $225.00 to $250.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. Finally, Barclays increased their target price on shares of F5 from $246.00 to $296.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 29th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have issued a hold rating, one has given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, F5 has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $295.00.

F5 Trading Down 0.8 %

F5 stock opened at $307.59 on Wednesday. F5, Inc. has a 1-year low of $159.01 and a 1-year high of $313.00. The firm has a market capitalization of $17.84 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.58, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.90 and a beta of 1.06. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $273.09 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $239.01.

F5 announced that its Board of Directors has approved a stock buyback plan on Monday, October 28th that permits the company to repurchase $1.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization permits the network technology company to buy up to 7.9% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are usually an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling at F5

In other news, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 6,500 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $303.06, for a total value of $1,969,890.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 151,247 shares in the company, valued at $45,836,915.82. This represents a 4.12 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, insider Lyra Amber Schramm sold 253 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Saturday, February 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $297.26, for a total transaction of $75,206.78. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 200 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $59,452. This represents a 55.85 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 11,574 shares of company stock valued at $3,455,057. Corporate insiders own 0.52% of the company’s stock.

About F5

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.