Needham & Company LLC Has Lowered Expectations for Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) Stock Price

Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) had its price target decreased by investment analysts at Needham & Company LLC from $380.00 to $365.00 in a research note issued on Friday, Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has a “buy” rating on the stock. Needham & Company LLC‘s price target points to a potential upside of 49.72% from the company’s current price.

NET has been the subject of several other research reports. Fox Advisors downgraded shares of Cloudflare to a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday. TD Cowen lowered shares of Cloudflare from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday. Raymond James Financial cut shares of Cloudflare from a “strong-buy” rating to an “underperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday. Royal Bank Of Canada boosted their price target on shares of Cloudflare from $290.00 to $346.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, August 7th. Finally, Mizuho upped their price objective on shares of Cloudflare from $260.00 to $310.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 15th. Twenty-five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, eight have given a Hold rating and four have assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $333.61.

Cloudflare Price Performance

NET stock opened at $243.79 on Friday. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $319.02 and a 200 day moving average price of $249.31. The stock has a market cap of $86.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -420.32, a PEG ratio of 206.44 and a beta of 1.37. Cloudflare has a fifty-two week low of $158.83 and a fifty-two week high of $370.35. 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 announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 5th. The company reported $0.38 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.34 by $0.04. The firm had revenue of $782.51 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $737.16 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 39.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $0.27 earnings per share. Equities research analysts anticipate that Cloudflare will post 0.03 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Cloudflare

In related news, CFO Thomas J. Seifert sold 12,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $299.59, for a total value of $3,744,875.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer owned 104,958 shares in the company, valued at $31,444,367.22. This trade represents a 10.64% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, Director Carl Ledbetter sold 5,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $304.40, for a total value of $1,522,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director directly owned 868,073 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $264,241,421.20. This represents a 0.57% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold 259,057 shares of company stock worth $79,516,905 over the last 90 days. 10.66% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Cloudflare

Several institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in NET. Jennison Associates LLC lifted its stake in shares of Cloudflare by 135.8% in the first quarter. Jennison Associates LLC now owns 4,394,484 shares of the company’s stock valued at $906,758,000 after purchasing an additional 2,530,872 shares during the period. Amundi boosted its holdings in Cloudflare by 2.0% during the first quarter. Amundi now owns 1,707,256 shares of the company’s stock worth $352,275,000 after buying an additional 32,804 shares in the last quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. boosted its holdings in Cloudflare by 4.9% during the third quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. now owns 1,046,812 shares of the company’s stock worth $363,537,000 after buying an additional 48,956 shares in the last quarter. National Pension Service grew its position in Cloudflare by 1.6% during the second quarter. National Pension Service now owns 959,987 shares of the company’s stock worth $235,466,000 after buying an additional 15,546 shares during the period. Finally, Swiss National Bank grew its position in Cloudflare by 8.1% during the first quarter. Swiss National Bank now owns 927,200 shares of the company’s stock worth $191,318,000 after buying an additional 69,800 shares during the period. 82.68% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Cloudflare News Roundup

Here are the key news stories impacting Cloudflare this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Q3 revenue increased 39.2% year over year to $782.5 million, above forecasts, while non-GAAP EPS of $0.38 also beat estimates. The company called it a record quarter, with annualized revenue surpassing $3 billion. Cloudflare earnings results
• Positive Sentiment: Cloudflare raised its full-year revenue forecast to about $2.96 billion, from prior guidance of $2.86 billion–$2.87 billion. Its next-quarter revenue outlook was also stronger than analysts expected, supporting optimism about continued demand. WSJ outlook report
• Positive Sentiment: Reports cited enterprise adoption and demand for Cloudflare’s developer platform amid AI workloads as drivers of growth. Shares rallied in after-hours and premarket trading following the results. After-hours earnings coverage
• Neutral Sentiment: Cloudflare appointed Christian Smith president of revenue to lead its global go-to-market organization, with a stated focus on scaling growth. The impact will depend on execution. Revenue leadership appointment
• Negative Sentiment: Despite rapid sales growth, gross margin declined, free cash flow grew much more slowly than revenue, and the GAAP operating loss widened. These trends could temper enthusiasm if growth does not translate into improving profitability. Earnings and profitability analysis

Cloudflare Company Profile

Cloudflare, Inc (NYSE: NET) provides cloud connectivity, security and performance services for websites, applications, corporate networks and other internet-connected resources. Its global network is designed to help organizations improve the reliability, speed and security of digital services while reducing the complexity of managing internet infrastructure.

The company’s offerings include content delivery and authoritative domain name system services, distributed denial-of-service protection, web application and application programming interface security, bot management, and network security tools.