Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) Trading 1.8% Higher – Time to Buy?

Cloudflare, Inc. (NYSE:NET) rose 1.8% on Friday . The stock traded as high as $143.60 and last traded at $143.32. Approximately 709,979 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 82% from the average daily volume of 3,864,047 shares. The stock had previously closed at $140.72.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages recently commented on NET. JMP Securities raised their target price on Cloudflare from $135.00 to $180.00 and gave the company a “market outperform” rating in a report on Friday, February 7th. Jefferies Financial Group lifted their price objective on shares of Cloudflare from $100.00 to $125.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. The Goldman Sachs Group upped their target price on shares of Cloudflare from $140.00 to $183.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, February 7th. Scotiabank lifted their price target on shares of Cloudflare from $87.00 to $110.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 21st. Finally, Needham & Company LLC reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $185.00 price objective on shares of Cloudflare in a research report on Tuesday, February 18th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twelve have assigned a hold rating and eleven have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $136.28.

Cloudflare Stock Up 3.4 %

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.32, a current ratio of 3.37 and a quick ratio of 3.37. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $133.31 and its 200-day simple moving average is $105.43. The stock has a market cap of $49.93 billion, a P/E ratio of -661.26 and a beta of 1.12.

Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 6th. The company reported ($0.03) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.18 by ($0.21). Cloudflare had a negative return on equity of 5.52% and a negative net margin of 4.72%. On average, research analysts anticipate that Cloudflare, Inc. will post -0.11 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity

In other Cloudflare news, CFO Thomas J. Seifert sold 15,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, December 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $109.90, for a total value of $1,648,500.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 252,869 shares in the company, valued at approximately $27,790,303.10. This represents a 5.60 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, insider Douglas James Kramer sold 2,481 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $131.66, for a total transaction of $326,648.46. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 175,688 shares in the company, valued at $23,131,082.08. The trade was a 1.39 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 638,046 shares of company stock valued at $81,243,344. 12.83% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Cloudflare

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC grew its stake in shares of Cloudflare by 13.7% in the 3rd quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 987 shares of the company’s stock worth $80,000 after purchasing an additional 119 shares during the last quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. grew its position in Cloudflare by 21.1% in the third quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 3,455 shares of the company’s stock worth $279,000 after buying an additional 602 shares during the last quarter. Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC grew its position in Cloudflare by 20.7% in the third quarter. Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC now owns 25,014 shares of the company’s stock worth $2,023,000 after buying an additional 4,298 shares during the last quarter. Pallas Capital Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of Cloudflare in the third quarter valued at $248,000. Finally, abrdn plc lifted its position in shares of Cloudflare by 30.9% during the 3rd quarter. abrdn plc now owns 76,770 shares of the company’s stock valued at $6,210,000 after acquiring an additional 18,132 shares during the last quarter. 82.68% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Cloudflare Company Profile

Cloudflare, Inc operates as a cloud services provider that delivers a range of services to businesses worldwide. The company provides an integrated cloud-based security solution to secure a range of combination of platforms, including public cloud, private cloud, on-premise, software-as-a-service applications, and IoT devices; and website and application security products comprising web application firewall, bot management, distributed denial of service, API gateways, SSL/TLS encryption, script management, security center, and rate limiting products.