Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. Takes $1.43 Million Position in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV)

Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. bought a new position in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV - Free Report) during the third quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The fund bought 6,483 shares of the network technology company's stock, valued at approximately $1,428,000.

A number of other large investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Family Firm Inc. bought a new position in F5 during the second quarter worth $25,000. New Covenant Trust Company N.A. acquired a new stake in shares of F5 during the 1st quarter worth about $27,000. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC bought a new stake in shares of F5 during the 3rd quarter worth about $28,000. Quest Partners LLC grew its stake in F5 by 9,100.0% in the 2nd quarter. Quest Partners LLC now owns 184 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $32,000 after buying an additional 182 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Kathleen S. Wright Associates Inc. acquired a new position in F5 in the 3rd quarter valued at about $32,000. Institutional investors own 90.66% of the company's stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Piper Sandler boosted their price objective on F5 from $186.00 to $246.00 and gave the stock a "neutral" rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their price target on F5 from $212.00 to $241.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. StockNews.com upgraded F5 from a "buy" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. Morgan Stanley lifted their target price on F5 from $215.00 to $230.00 and gave the stock an "equal weight" rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on shares of F5 from $225.00 to $250.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. Seven investment 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 company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, F5 currently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and a consensus price target of $233.56.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, Director Alan Higginson sold 825 shares of the business's stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $239.77, for a total transaction of $197,810.25. Following the sale, the director now owns 9,882 shares in the company, valued at $2,369,407.14. The trade was a 7.71 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CFO Francis J. Pelzer sold 600 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, September 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $217.50, for a total value of $130,500.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 30,425 shares of the company's stock, valued at $6,617,437.50. This represents a 1.93 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 4,475 shares of company stock worth $977,039 in the last ninety days. 0.58% of the stock is owned by insiders.

F5 Trading Down 0.7 %

FFIV stock traded down $1.85 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $250.07. The stock had a trading volume of 345,275 shares, compared to its average volume of 533,647. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $228.03 and a 200 day simple moving average of $198.20. The firm has a market capitalization of $14.66 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.07, a P/E/G ratio of 3.36 and a beta of 1.05. F5, Inc. has a 52 week low of $159.01 and a 52 week high of $252.30.

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, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $3.45 by $0.22. The business had revenue of $747.00 million for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $730.43 million. F5 had a net margin of 20.13% and a return on equity of 20.80%. The firm's quarterly revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm posted $2.76 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts expect that F5, Inc. will post 11.01 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

F5 declared that its Board of Directors has approved a share repurchase program 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 reacquire up to 7.9% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are usually an indication that the company's board believes its shares are undervalued.

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.