Simon Quick Advisors LLC Purchases 243 Shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV)

Simon Quick Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) by 17.5% in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 1,633 shares of the network technology company’s stock after buying an additional 243 shares during the period. Simon Quick Advisors LLC’s holdings in F5 were worth $411,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in FFIV. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC acquired a new stake in F5 in the third quarter worth $28,000. Kathleen S. Wright Associates Inc. bought a new position in shares of F5 during the 3rd quarter worth about $32,000. Friedenthal Financial acquired a new stake in shares of F5 in the 4th quarter valued at about $50,000. Brown Financial Advisors bought a new stake in F5 in the 2nd quarter valued at about $66,000. Finally, Venturi Wealth Management LLC raised its stake in F5 by 79.8% during the 3rd quarter. Venturi Wealth Management LLC now owns 320 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $70,000 after buying an additional 142 shares during the period. 90.66% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

F5 Stock Performance

F5 stock opened at $272.91 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $16.00 billion, a PE ratio of 28.55, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.62 and a beta of 1.06. F5, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $159.01 and a fifty-two week high of $273.09. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $255.19 and its 200 day simple moving average is $223.32.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last released its earnings results on Monday, October 28th. The network technology company reported $3.67 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.45 by $0.22. The company had revenue of $747.00 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $730.43 million. F5 had a return on equity of 20.80% and a net margin of 20.13%. F5’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $2.76 earnings per share. As a group, analysts predict that F5, Inc. will post 11.01 EPS for the current fiscal year.

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

Insider Activity

In related news, Director Alan Higginson sold 825 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $239.77, for a total transaction of $197,810.25. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 9,882 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,369,407.14. This represents a 7.71 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Insiders own 0.58% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have commented on FFIV. Evercore ISI raised their price objective on F5 from $240.00 to $270.00 and gave the company an “in-line” rating in a research note on Friday, January 17th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of F5 from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. Barclays raised their price objective on shares of F5 from $214.00 to $246.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their target price on shares of F5 from $240.00 to $260.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Friday, January 3rd. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group raised their price target on shares of F5 from $212.00 to $241.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, one has issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $251.25.

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.