Castleark Management LLC Acquires Shares of 19,550 F5, Inc. $FFIV

Castleark Management LLC acquired a new stake in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor acquired 19,550 shares of the network technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $8,132,000.

Other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Pinnacle Wealth Management Advisory Group LLC raised its position in F5 by 2.6% in the 1st quarter. Pinnacle Wealth Management Advisory Group LLC now owns 1,447 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $419,000 after purchasing an additional 36 shares during the last quarter. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC increased its stake in F5 by 3.4% in the fourth quarter. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC now owns 1,190 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $309,000 after purchasing an additional 39 shares during the period. Meiji Yasuda Asset Management Co Ltd. raised its holdings in shares of F5 by 4.4% in the fourth quarter. Meiji Yasuda Asset Management Co Ltd. now owns 968 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $247,000 after buying an additional 41 shares during the last quarter. Coldstream Capital Management Inc. boosted its stake in shares of F5 by 4.5% during the third quarter. Coldstream Capital Management Inc. now owns 1,047 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $338,000 after buying an additional 45 shares during the period. Finally, Optas LLC grew its holdings in shares of F5 by 4.7% during the first quarter. Optas LLC now owns 1,035 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $299,000 after buying an additional 46 shares during the last quarter. 90.66% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Transactions at F5

In related news, EVP Thomas Dean Fountain sold 1,208 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $414.63, for a total transaction of $500,873.04. Following the sale, the executive vice president owned 8,060 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,341,917.80. The trade was a 13.03% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Francois Locoh-Donou sold 3,782 shares of F5 stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $412.44, for a total transaction of $1,559,848.08. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 146,989 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $60,624,143.16. The trade was a 2.51% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 15,699 shares of company stock valued at $6,316,411. 0.48% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of analysts have weighed in on FFIV shares. Wall Street Zen raised F5 from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday, August 1st. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “hold” rating on shares of F5 in a report on Tuesday, July 28th. Zacks Research cut F5 from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, July 27th. Barclays increased their price target on F5 from $386.00 to $397.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 28th. Finally, Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on shares of F5 from $380.00 to $415.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 28th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, F5 has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $416.62.

F5 Price Performance

FFIV opened at $382.75 on Wednesday. F5, Inc. has a 12 month low of $223.76 and a 12 month high of $435.00. The stock has a market capitalization of $21.68 billion, a P/E ratio of 30.47, a P/E/G ratio of 3.70 and a beta of 1.03. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $403.35 and a 200-day simple moving average of $349.82.

F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Monday, July 27th. The network technology company reported $4.73 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $4.00 by $0.73. The firm had revenue of $865.08 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $834.60 million. F5 had a return on equity of 21.54% and a net margin of 21.95%.F5’s quarterly revenue was up 10.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $4.16 earnings per share. F5 has set its Q4 2026 guidance at 4.140-4.260 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 17.210-17.330 EPS. Research analysts anticipate that F5, Inc. will post 13.65 EPS for the current year.

F5 Profile

F5 Inc (NASDAQ:FFIV) specializes in application services and delivery networking, helping organizations ensure the availability, performance and security of their applications. The company’s core offerings include advanced load balancing, traffic management and application security solutions designed to optimize user experiences and protect against threats such as distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and web application exploits.

At the heart of F5’s product portfolio is the BIG-IP platform, which provides a suite of software modules for local and global traffic management, secure web application firewalling and DNS service delivery.