Denver PWM LLC Trims Holdings in F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV)

Denver PWM LLC decreased its stake in shares of F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) by 20.6% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 239 shares of the network technology company’s stock after selling 62 shares during the quarter. Denver PWM LLC’s holdings in F5 were worth $60,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Chase Investment Counsel Corp purchased a new position in F5 during the third quarter worth approximately $4,726,000. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised its position in F5 by 24.7% in the third quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 409,130 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $90,090,000 after purchasing an additional 81,005 shares during the period. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC raised its position in F5 by 457.6% in the fourth quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 31,375 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $7,899,000 after purchasing an additional 25,748 shares during the period. Boston Trust Walden Corp raised its position in F5 by 3.9% in the fourth quarter. Boston Trust Walden Corp now owns 194,820 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $48,991,000 after purchasing an additional 7,341 shares during the period. Finally, New York State Common Retirement Fund raised its position in F5 by 14.3% in the third quarter. New York State Common Retirement Fund now owns 70,536 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $15,532,000 after purchasing an additional 8,800 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 90.66% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms have commented on FFIV. Bank of America lifted their target price on F5 from $180.00 to $260.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their target price on F5 from $260.00 to $310.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research report 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. Barclays lifted their target price on F5 from $246.00 to $296.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 29th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their price objective on F5 from $257.00 to $295.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 29th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have issued a hold rating, one has issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $295.00.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, Director Marianne Budnik sold 728 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $304.45, for a total transaction of $221,639.60. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 1,770 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $538,876.50. This represents a 29.14 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, EVP Chad Michael Whalen sold 4,093 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $290.33, for a total value of $1,188,320.69. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 27,264 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,915,557.12. This represents a 13.05 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 11,574 shares of company stock valued at $3,455,057 in the last three months. 0.52% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

F5 Price Performance

FFIV opened at $295.56 on Friday. F5, Inc. has a 12 month low of $159.01 and a 12 month high of $313.00. The stock has a market capitalization of $17.04 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.38, a PEG ratio of 3.85 and a beta of 1.06. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $275.62 and a 200 day moving average price of $241.08.

F5 declared that its board has initiated a stock 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 purchase up to 7.9% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are generally an indication that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

F5 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.