F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) Position Cut by Blue Trust Inc.

Blue Trust Inc. trimmed its stake in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) by 33.4% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The fund owned 411 shares of the network technology company’s stock after selling 206 shares during the quarter. Blue Trust Inc.’s holdings in F5 were worth $103,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in FFIV. Friedenthal Financial bought a new stake in F5 in the fourth quarter worth about $50,000. Venturi Wealth Management LLC raised its position in F5 by 79.8% in the third quarter. Venturi Wealth Management LLC now owns 320 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $70,000 after acquiring an additional 142 shares in the last quarter. Point72 Hong Kong Ltd bought a new stake in F5 in the third quarter worth about $84,000. Wingate Wealth Advisors Inc. bought a new stake in F5 in the fourth quarter worth about $99,000. Finally, Koshinski Asset Management Inc. bought a new stake in F5 in the fourth quarter worth about $202,000. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts recently weighed in on the company. StockNews.com raised F5 from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. Piper Sandler lifted their price target on F5 from $246.00 to $304.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 29th. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their price target on F5 from $257.00 to $295.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 29th. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their price target on F5 from $260.00 to $310.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 29th. Finally, Evercore ISI lifted their price target on F5 from $240.00 to $270.00 and gave the stock an “in-line” rating in a research note on Friday, January 17th. 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 given a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $295.00.

F5 Price Performance

NASDAQ FFIV opened at $295.56 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $17.04 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.38, a P/E/G ratio of 3.85 and a beta of 1.06. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $275.62 and its 200-day moving average is $241.08. F5, Inc. has a one year low of $159.01 and a one year high of $313.00.

F5 declared that its Board of Directors has authorized a stock buyback plan on Monday, October 28th that authorizes the company to repurchase $1.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the network technology company to repurchase up to 7.9% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are generally a sign that the company’s board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, Director Marianne Budnik sold 728 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $304.45, for a total value of $221,639.60. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 1,770 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $538,876.50. This trade represents a 29.14 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, insider Lyra Amber Schramm sold 253 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Saturday, February 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $297.26, for a total value of $75,206.78. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 200 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $59,452. The trade was a 55.85 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders sold 11,574 shares of company stock worth $3,455,057. 0.52% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

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.