WD Rutherford LLC Raises Stake in Cloudflare, Inc. $NET

WD Rutherford LLC increased its position in Cloudflare, Inc. (NYSE:NET) by 50.0% in the second quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 14,153 shares of the company’s stock after acquiring an additional 4,719 shares during the period. WD Rutherford LLC’s holdings in Cloudflare were worth $3,471,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the company. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in Cloudflare in the 4th quarter worth approximately $718,316,000. Jennison Associates LLC lifted its stake in shares of Cloudflare by 135.8% during the 1st quarter. Jennison Associates LLC now owns 4,394,484 shares of the company’s stock worth $906,758,000 after purchasing an additional 2,530,872 shares during the period. Corient Private Wealth LLC lifted its stake in shares of Cloudflare by 4,042.6% during the 4th quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC now owns 1,399,378 shares of the company’s stock worth $275,887,000 after purchasing an additional 1,365,598 shares during the period. Swedbank AB boosted its holdings in shares of Cloudflare by 697.5% during the first quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 927,606 shares of the company’s stock worth $191,402,000 after purchasing an additional 811,297 shares during the last quarter. Finally, National Pension Service boosted its holdings in shares of Cloudflare by 53.2% during the fourth quarter. National Pension Service now owns 948,003 shares of the company’s stock worth $186,899,000 after purchasing an additional 329,341 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.68% of the company’s stock.

Key Stories Impacting Cloudflare

Here are the key news stories impacting Cloudflare this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Strong second-quarter results support the rally. Cloudflare reported revenue of approximately $696.1 million, up 35.9% year over year and above expectations, while non-GAAP EPS of $0.29 exceeded consensus. Next-quarter revenue guidance of $736.5 million also topped analyst estimates, reinforcing confidence in continued growth. Cloudflare Q2 Deep Dive
• Positive Sentiment: AI security and enterprise demand are strengthening the growth story. Cloudflare’s AI-security strategy is supporting demand for SASE and Zero Trust products, while its agentic-AI and developer-platform offerings could help it win larger enterprise contracts and compete more directly with Palo Alto Networks and Zscaler. Cloudflare AI Security Strategy
• Positive Sentiment: New partnerships and government certifications expand Cloudflare’s addressable market. Signal selected Cloudflare as an independent Key Transparency auditor, adding credibility to Cloudflare’s privacy and security platform. Separately, FedRAMP High and GovRAMP Moderate authorizations position Cloudflare to pursue more government and regulated-industry contracts. Signal Partnership
• Neutral Sentiment: Analyst sentiment remains favorable but expectations are high. Cloudflare has a consensus “Moderate Buy” rating and an average target near $320, with several firms setting targets above that level. However, some target increases still imply limited upside after the stock’s substantial recent advance. Cloudflare Moderate Buy Rating
• Negative Sentiment: The $2.175 billion zero-coupon convertible-note offering creates a potential dilution overhang. The financing provides capital without cash interest payments, but conversions could dilute existing shareholders and increase future obligations. Cloudflare Convertible Notes Deal
• Negative Sentiment: Valuation and profitability remain risks. Cloudflare continues to post GAAP losses, and its premium valuation leaves the stock vulnerable if growth or margins disappoint. A director’s sale of 2,520 shares was conducted under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 plan and is a relatively minor overhang. SEC Insider Transaction Filing

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms recently commented on NET. Stifel Nicolaus set a $260.00 target price on Cloudflare in a research note on Friday, May 8th. TD Cowen raised their price target on Cloudflare from $300.00 to $355.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, August 7th. Royal Bank Of Canada lifted their price target on Cloudflare from $290.00 to $346.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, August 7th. UBS Group upped their price objective on shares of Cloudflare from $250.00 to $350.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, August 7th. Finally, Citizens Jmp increased their price objective on shares of Cloudflare from $330.00 to $394.00 and gave the stock a “market outperform” rating in a report on Friday, August 7th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-one have assigned a Buy rating, six have issued a Hold rating and four have issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $320.19.

Insider Activity at Cloudflare

In other news, CFO Thomas J. Seifert sold 55,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, August 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $300.30, for a total value of $16,516,500.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer owned 113,790 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $34,171,137. This represents a 32.58% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, insider Michelle Zatlyn sold 35,080 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, May 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $213.98, for a total transaction of $7,506,418.40. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 47,425 shares in the company, valued at approximately $10,148,001.50. This represents a 42.52% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 752,052 shares of company stock worth $184,648,633. Company insiders own 10.66% of the company’s stock.

Cloudflare Trading Up 1.5%

NET stock opened at $311.48 on Thursday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.82, a current ratio of 1.82 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.22. The company has a market cap of $110.10 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -537.03, a PEG ratio of 189.82 and a beta of 1.65. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $259.43 and a 200-day simple moving average of $221.96. Cloudflare, Inc. has a 52 week low of $158.83 and a 52 week high of $324.73.

Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 5th. The company reported $0.29 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.27 by $0.02. The firm had revenue of $696.06 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $664.66 million. Cloudflare had a negative return on equity of 3.88% and a negative net margin of 8.21%.The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 35.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $0.21 earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts expect that Cloudflare, Inc. will post 0.03 EPS for the current year.

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.