F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) Shares Sold by Mendota Financial Group LLC

Mendota Financial Group LLC cut its stake in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) by 30.1% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 458 shares of the network technology company’s stock after selling 197 shares during the period. Mendota Financial Group LLC’s holdings in F5 were worth $115,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Several other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of FFIV. Quest Partners LLC lifted its stake in shares of F5 by 9,100.0% during the second quarter. Quest Partners LLC now owns 184 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $32,000 after buying an additional 182 shares during the period. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. raised its stake in F5 by 10.7% in the 2nd quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. now owns 6,416 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $1,105,000 after acquiring an additional 620 shares during the last quarter. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale lifted its position in F5 by 12.8% during the 2nd quarter. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale now owns 64,710 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $11,080,000 after acquiring an additional 7,349 shares during the period. Federated Hermes Inc. grew its stake in F5 by 7.1% during the 2nd quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. now owns 5,635 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $971,000 after purchasing an additional 375 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Thoroughbred Financial Services LLC acquired a new position in shares of F5 in the second quarter valued at about $339,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

F5 Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ FFIV opened at $255.16 on Tuesday. The company has a market capitalization of $14.96 billion, a PE ratio of 26.69, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.54 and a beta of 1.06. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $251.32 and its 200 day moving average price is $218.75. F5, Inc. has a 1 year low of $159.01 and a 1 year high of $264.50.

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

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

Insider Buying and Selling at F5

In other news, Director Alan Higginson sold 825 shares of F5 stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $239.77, for a total value of $197,810.25. Following the sale, the director now owns 9,882 shares in the company, valued at $2,369,407.14. This trade represents a 7.71 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CFO Francis J. Pelzer sold 600 shares of F5 stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $217.67, for a total transaction of $130,602.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 29,825 shares in the company, valued at approximately $6,492,007.75. This trade represents a 1.97 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.58% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts recently commented on FFIV shares. StockNews.com raised F5 from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their price objective on shares of F5 from $212.00 to $241.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. Barclays upped their price objective on shares of F5 from $214.00 to $246.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Royal Bank of Canada raised their target price on shares of F5 from $240.00 to $260.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a report on Friday, January 3rd. Finally, Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on shares of F5 from $230.00 to $262.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, December 17th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, F5 currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $239.33.

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.