Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) Trading Up 6.2% – What’s Next?

Cloudflare, Inc. (NYSE:NET)’s stock price rose 6.2% during trading on Wednesday . The company traded as high as $221.46 and last traded at $224.7140. Approximately 2,240,375 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 53% from the average daily volume of 4,741,661 shares. The stock had previously closed at $211.52.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms have weighed in on NET. DZ Bank raised Cloudflare from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $215.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Friday, February 13th. New Street Research set a $140.00 price objective on shares of Cloudflare in a research note on Wednesday, February 11th. Mizuho lowered their target price on shares of Cloudflare from $280.00 to $255.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, January 21st. Susquehanna set a $190.00 target price on Cloudflare in a research report on Thursday, February 12th. Finally, Weiss Ratings reissued a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of Cloudflare in a report on Wednesday, January 21st. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eighteen have given a Buy rating, eight have assigned a Hold rating and two have given a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $233.38.

Cloudflare Stock Performance

The firm has a fifty day moving average of $187.04 and a 200-day moving average of $203.27. The company has a quick ratio of 1.98, a current ratio of 1.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.35. The stock has a market capitalization of $77.96 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -767.46 and a beta of 1.98.

Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 10th. The company reported $0.28 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.27 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $614.51 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $591.67 million. Cloudflare had a negative return on equity of 7.24% and a negative net margin of 4.72%.The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 33.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $0.19 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Cloudflare, Inc. will post -0.11 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity

In other news, CAO Janel Riley sold 23,332 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, March 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $190.00, for a total value of $4,433,080.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer owned 56,791 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $10,790,290. The trade was a 29.12% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Matthew Prince sold 13,618 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, March 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $227.80, for a total transaction of $3,102,180.40. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. In the last ninety days, insiders have sold 638,799 shares of company stock valued at $121,556,536. 10.89% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Cloudflare

Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Stance Capital LLC grew its holdings in Cloudflare by 10.7% in the 4th quarter. Stance Capital LLC now owns 6,721 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,325,000 after buying an additional 650 shares during the period. Osbon Capital Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Cloudflare in the 4th quarter worth about $2,456,000. Fund Advisors of America Inc FL acquired a new stake in shares of Cloudflare in the fourth quarter worth $1,900,000. Spear Advisors LLC purchased a new position in shares of Cloudflare in the 4th quarter valued at $5,844,000. Finally, World Investment Advisors acquired a new position in Cloudflare during the 4th quarter worth approximately $225,000. 82.68% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About Cloudflare

Cloudflare, Inc is a global web infrastructure and security company that provides a suite of services designed to improve the performance, reliability and security of internet properties. Its core offerings include a content delivery network (CDN), distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) protection, managed DNS, and a web application firewall (WAF). Cloudflare also provides tools for bot management, SSL/TLS, load balancing and rate limiting to help organizations maintain uptime and protect web applications from attack.

In addition to traditional edge and security services, Cloudflare has expanded into edge computing and developer platforms.