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

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

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research analysts have weighed in on NET shares. Mizuho reduced their target price on Cloudflare from $280.00 to $255.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, January 21st. Truist Financial set a $225.00 price target on Cloudflare in a report on Tuesday, January 20th. Guggenheim raised their price target on Cloudflare from $117.00 to $140.00 and gave the stock a “sell” rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 11th. BTIG Research lifted their price objective on Cloudflare from $199.00 to $243.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 11th. Finally, KeyCorp reiterated an “overweight” rating on shares of Cloudflare in a research report on Wednesday, February 11th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eighteen have given a Buy rating, eight have given a Hold rating and two have given a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $233.38.

Cloudflare Price Performance

The stock has a market cap of $79.56 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -780.46 and a beta of 1.98. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $185.89 and a 200-day simple moving average of $202.98. The company has a current ratio of 1.98, a quick ratio of 1.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.35.

Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 10th. The company reported $0.28 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.27 by $0.01. The company 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%.Cloudflare’s revenue for the quarter was up 33.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $0.19 earnings per share. Research analysts expect that Cloudflare, Inc. will post -0.11 EPS for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Matthew Prince sold 52,384 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $189.47, for a total transaction of $9,925,196.48. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CFO Thomas J. Seifert sold 41,557 shares of Cloudflare stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $185.04, for a total transaction of $7,689,707.28. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer owned 85,452 shares in the company, valued at $15,812,038.08. This trade represents a 32.72% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders sold a total of 534,031 shares of company stock valued at $99,017,195 in the last quarter. 10.89% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in NET. HM Payson & Co. bought a new stake in Cloudflare during the 4th quarter worth about $25,000. Physician Wealth Advisors Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Cloudflare by 693.3% during the 3rd quarter. Physician Wealth Advisors Inc. now owns 119 shares of the company’s stock worth $26,000 after buying an additional 104 shares during the last quarter. Wiser Advisor Group LLC bought a new position in shares of Cloudflare in the 3rd quarter valued at about $26,000. Westside Investment Management Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Cloudflare by 100.0% in the 3rd quarter. Westside Investment Management Inc. now owns 130 shares of the company’s stock valued at $28,000 after acquiring an additional 65 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Twin Peaks Wealth Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Cloudflare in the second quarter valued at about $29,000. Institutional investors own 82.68% of the company’s stock.

Cloudflare Company Profile

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.