Groupama Asset Managment Acquires New Stake in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV)

Groupama Asset Managment purchased a new position in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV - Free Report) during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund purchased 2,323 shares of the network technology company's stock, valued at approximately $587,000.

A number of other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in FFIV. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in F5 by 1.9% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,604,362 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $402,536,000 after buying an additional 30,367 shares during the last quarter. National Bank of Canada FI increased its stake in shares of F5 by 14.9% during the 4th quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 27,170 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $6,833,000 after purchasing an additional 3,526 shares during the last quarter. B. Metzler seel. Sohn & Co. AG raised its holdings in shares of F5 by 213.5% in the 4th quarter. B. Metzler seel. Sohn & Co. AG now owns 3,853 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $969,000 after purchasing an additional 2,624 shares during the period. Alliancebernstein L.P. lifted its stake in F5 by 14.0% in the fourth quarter. Alliancebernstein L.P. now owns 656,231 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $165,022,000 after purchasing an additional 80,570 shares during the last quarter. Finally, O Shaughnessy Asset Management LLC grew its holdings in F5 by 97.3% during the fourth quarter. O Shaughnessy Asset Management LLC now owns 4,916 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $1,236,000 after purchasing an additional 2,424 shares during the period. 90.66% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling at F5

In other F5 news, Director Marianne Budnik sold 728 shares of F5 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 transaction, the director now directly owns 1,770 shares of the company's stock, valued at $538,876.50. The trade was a 29.14 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 6,500 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $303.06, for a total transaction of $1,969,890.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 151,247 shares in the company, valued at approximately $45,836,915.82. This trade represents a 4.12 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 18,232 shares of company stock worth $5,310,131 over the last ninety days. Insiders own 0.52% of the company's stock.

F5 Trading Up 9.4 %

Shares of FFIV traded up $22.61 during midday trading on Wednesday, reaching $264.14. The stock had a trading volume of 632,460 shares, compared to its average volume of 573,989. The company has a market capitalization of $15.23 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.26, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.85 and a beta of 1.14. The company's 50-day moving average is $280.34 and its 200 day moving average is $257.36. F5, Inc. has a 12-month low of $159.01 and a 12-month high of $313.00.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages recently weighed in on FFIV. Evercore ISI lifted their price objective on F5 from $240.00 to $270.00 and gave the stock an "in-line" rating in a report on Friday, January 17th. Morgan Stanley reduced their price objective on shares of F5 from $310.00 to $269.00 and set an "equal weight" rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their target price on F5 from $257.00 to $295.00 and gave the stock a "neutral" rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 29th. Royal Bank of Canada raised their target price 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, Bank of America increased their price target on shares of F5 from $180.00 to $260.00 and gave the stock an "underperform" rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. One investment 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. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $285.78.

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.