F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) Shares Sold by Citigroup Inc.

Citigroup Inc. trimmed its position in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV - Free Report) by 18.2% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 131,434 shares of the network technology company's stock after selling 29,279 shares during the period. Citigroup Inc. owned about 0.23% of F5 worth $28,942,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Empirical Finance LLC lifted its holdings in shares of F5 by 2.3% during the 3rd quarter. Empirical Finance LLC now owns 2,049 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $451,000 after acquiring an additional 46 shares during the period. First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. lifted its holdings in shares of F5 by 2.9% during the 3rd quarter. First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. now owns 2,030 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $447,000 after acquiring an additional 58 shares during the period. Simon Quick Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in shares of F5 by 4.9% during the 2nd quarter. Simon Quick Advisors LLC now owns 1,353 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $233,000 after acquiring an additional 63 shares during the period. Profund Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in shares of F5 by 6.3% during the 2nd quarter. Profund Advisors LLC now owns 1,185 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $204,000 after acquiring an additional 70 shares during the period. Finally, Nisa Investment Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in shares of F5 by 0.3% during the 2nd quarter. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC now owns 28,231 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $4,862,000 after acquiring an additional 73 shares during the period. 90.66% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research analysts have recently weighed in on FFIV shares. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their price objective on shares of F5 from $212.00 to $241.00 and gave the stock a "neutral" rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Needham & Company LLC increased their price objective on shares of F5 from $220.00 to $235.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a report on Tuesday, July 30th. Piper Sandler increased their price objective on shares of F5 from $186.00 to $246.00 and gave the stock a "neutral" rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Royal Bank of Canada increased their target price on shares of F5 from $205.00 to $240.00 and gave the stock a "sector perform" rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. Finally, 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 report on Tuesday, October 29th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $233.56.

F5 Price Performance

FFIV traded up $3.18 during trading hours on Tuesday, hitting $251.92. 391,751 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 535,147. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $227.29 and a 200-day simple moving average of $197.64. F5, Inc. has a 12 month low of $159.01 and a 12 month high of $252.16. The stock has a market cap of $14.77 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.35, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.34 and a beta of 1.05.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Monday, October 28th. The network technology company reported $3.67 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.45 by $0.22. F5 had a return on equity of 20.80% and a net margin of 20.13%. The firm had revenue of $747.00 million for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $730.43 million. During the same period last year, the business posted $2.76 earnings per share. The firm's revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts expect that F5, Inc. will post 11.01 EPS for the current year.

F5 declared that its Board of Directors has approved a share repurchase plan on Monday, October 28th that allows the company to buyback $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization allows the network technology company to purchase up to 7.9% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are usually a sign that the company's board believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling at F5

In other F5 news, CFO Francis J. Pelzer sold 600 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction on Monday, October 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $217.67, for a total value of $130,602.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 29,825 shares in the company, valued at approximately $6,492,007.75. This trade represents a 1.97 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director Alan Higginson sold 825 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $239.77, for a total value of $197,810.25. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 9,882 shares in the company, valued at $2,369,407.14. This trade represents a 7.71 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 4,475 shares of company stock worth $977,039. 0.58% of the stock is owned by 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.