Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) Rating Lowered to “Strong Sell” at Zacks Research

Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) was downgraded by Zacks Research from a “hold” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a research note issued on Wednesday, Zacks reports.

A number of other brokerages have also issued reports on NET. UBS Group lifted their price target on Cloudflare from $250.00 to $350.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, August 7th. DZ Bank lowered Cloudflare from a “strong-buy” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a report on Friday, August 7th. Citigroup restated a “market outperform” rating on shares of Cloudflare in a report on Monday, August 31st. The Goldman Sachs Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $389.00 target price on shares of Cloudflare in a research note on Friday, August 7th. Finally, Sanford C. Bernstein upped their target price on shares of Cloudflare from $164.00 to $181.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Thursday, September 17th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-one have given a Buy rating, six have given a Hold rating and five have given a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Cloudflare has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $330.59.

Cloudflare Stock Down 2.9%

NET opened at $314.76 on Wednesday. The company has a market cap of $111.26 billion, a PE ratio of -542.69, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 257.95 and a beta of 1.65. Cloudflare has a twelve month low of $158.83 and a twelve month high of $370.35. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $319.61 and a 200 day moving average price of $263.78. The company has a quick ratio of 1.82, a current ratio of 1.82 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.22.

Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 6th. The company reported $0.29 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.27 by $0.02. Cloudflare had a negative return on equity of 3.88% and a negative net margin of 8.21%. The company had revenue of $696.06 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $664.66 million. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.21 EPS. Cloudflare’s revenue was up 35.9% compared to the same quarter last year. Cloudflare has set its Q3 2026 guidance at 0.340-0.340 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 1.250-1.260 EPS. Sell-side analysts expect that Cloudflare will post 0.03 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Cloudflare news, CEO Matthew Prince sold 52,383 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $283.42, for a total value of $14,846,389.86. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, insider Michelle Zatlyn sold 33,003 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $294.63, for a total transaction of $9,723,673.89. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 69,775 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $20,557,808.25. This trade represents a 32.11% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders have sold 458,839 shares of company stock valued at $138,172,392 over the last ninety days. Company insiders own 10.66% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. GK Wealth Management LLC purchased a new position in Cloudflare in the third quarter worth approximately $25,000. Cornerstone Financial Management LLC raised its position in Cloudflare by 65.3% in the second quarter. Cornerstone Financial Management LLC now owns 119 shares of the company’s stock valued at $29,000 after purchasing an additional 47 shares during the period. C M Bidwell & Associates Ltd. purchased a new stake in Cloudflare in the second quarter valued at $30,000. CX Institutional lifted its stake in shares of Cloudflare by 49.4% in the 2nd quarter. CX Institutional now owns 133 shares of the company’s stock valued at $33,000 after purchasing an additional 44 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Cape Investment Advisory Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Cloudflare in the 2nd quarter valued at $33,000. 82.68% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Cloudflare

Cloudflare, Inc is a connectivity cloud company that provides services designed to help organizations make their websites, applications and networks more secure, reliable and faster. Its global network sits between users and the services they access, supporting content delivery, domain name system services, traffic optimization and protection against distributed denial-of-service attacks and other online threats.

The company offers a range of application and network security products, including web application firewalls, bot management, application programming interface protection, zero-trust security and secure access services.