Morningstar Investment Management LLC Buys New Holdings in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV)

Morningstar Investment Management LLC bought a new position in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV - Free Report) during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor bought 884 shares of the network technology company's stock, valued at approximately $222,000.

Several other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of FFIV. Creative Planning raised its holdings in F5 by 8.7% during the 3rd quarter. Creative Planning now owns 4,342 shares of the network technology company's stock worth $956,000 after purchasing an additional 348 shares during the last quarter. Bleakley Financial Group LLC bought a new stake in shares of F5 during the third quarter worth approximately $211,000. Blue Trust Inc. lifted its holdings in F5 by 156.0% in the third quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 617 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $136,000 after buying an additional 376 shares during the period. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC bought a new stake in shares of F5 during the 3rd quarter valued at $28,000. Finally, Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC lifted its stake in shares of F5 by 2.1% in the 3rd quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC now owns 13,738 shares of the network technology company's stock valued at $3,025,000 after purchasing an additional 282 shares during the period. 90.66% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages recently commented on FFIV. Piper Sandler lifted their price objective on F5 from $246.00 to $304.00 and gave the stock a "neutral" rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 29th. StockNews.com upgraded F5 from a "buy" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. Morgan Stanley increased their price target on shares of F5 from $262.00 to $310.00 and gave the company an "equal weight" rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 29th. The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their price objective on shares of F5 from $257.00 to $295.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a report on Wednesday, January 29th. Finally, Evercore ISI upped their target price on shares of F5 from $240.00 to $270.00 and gave the company 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 given a hold rating, one has assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company's stock. According to MarketBeat, F5 presently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average target price of $295.00.

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F5 Price Performance

Shares of F5 stock traded down $2.35 on Monday, hitting $293.21. The company had a trading volume of 322,652 shares, compared to its average volume of 609,248. F5, Inc. has a twelve month low of $159.01 and a twelve month high of $313.00. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $275.62 and a 200-day moving average of $241.47. The firm has a market capitalization of $16.90 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.20, a P/E/G ratio of 3.85 and a beta of 1.06.

F5 declared that its board has approved a share buyback program on Monday, October 28th that allows the company to buyback $1.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization allows the network technology company to repurchase up to 7.9% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are often an indication that the company's board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other F5 news, EVP Chad Michael Whalen sold 4,093 shares of the company's stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $290.33, for a total transaction of $1,188,320.69. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 27,264 shares of the company's stock, valued at $7,915,557.12. This represents a 13.05 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through 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 stock was sold at an average price of $297.26, for a total transaction of $75,206.78. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 200 shares of the company's stock, valued at $59,452. This represents a 55.85 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 11,574 shares of company stock valued at $3,455,057. Company insiders own 0.52% of the company's stock.

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.