Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) Stock Price Expected to Rise, Stifel Nicolaus Analyst Says

Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) had its price target lifted by analysts at Stifel Nicolaus from $136.00 to $175.00 in a report issued on Friday,Benzinga reports. The firm presently has a “buy” rating on the stock. Stifel Nicolaus’ price target points to a potential upside of 5.88% from the stock’s current price.

NET has been the subject of a number of other reports. Truist Financial boosted their price target on shares of Cloudflare from $120.00 to $140.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 28th. Piper Sandler boosted their target price on shares of Cloudflare from $92.00 to $153.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Cloudflare from a “sell” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $77.00 to $140.00 in a research report on Thursday, January 2nd. Baird R W downgraded shares of Cloudflare from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday. Finally, Citigroup raised Cloudflare from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price target for the company from $95.00 to $145.00 in a research report on Friday, January 17th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twelve have given a hold rating and twelve have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $119.56.

Cloudflare Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:NET traded up $23.77 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $165.29. 5,377,988 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 3,382,584. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $116.71 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $95.92. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.32, a quick ratio of 3.37 and a current ratio of 3.37. Cloudflare has a 52 week low of $66.24 and a 52 week high of $165.00. The company has a market cap of $56.73 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -634.87 and a beta of 1.12.

Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, February 6th. The company reported ($0.03) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.18 by ($0.21). Cloudflare had a negative return on equity of 7.18% and a negative net margin of 5.97%. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Cloudflare will post -0.1 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CEO Matthew Prince sold 52,384 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $89.06, for a total value of $4,665,319.04. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 192,177 shares in the company, valued at approximately $17,115,283.62. This represents a 21.42 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CFO Thomas J. Seifert sold 28,635 shares of Cloudflare stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $95.03, for a total value of $2,721,184.05. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 252,869 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $24,030,141.07. This represents a 10.17 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 633,738 shares of company stock worth $69,632,506 over the last ninety days. 12.83% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Cloudflare

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Sanctuary Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Cloudflare during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $906,000. Diversified Trust Co bought a new stake in shares of Cloudflare in the 3rd quarter worth $471,000. CWM LLC boosted its holdings in Cloudflare by 91.0% in the third quarter. CWM LLC now owns 9,690 shares of the company’s stock worth $784,000 after purchasing an additional 4,617 shares during the last quarter. Wedmont Private Capital increased its position in shares of Cloudflare by 41.7% during the 3rd quarter. Wedmont Private Capital now owns 3,797 shares of the company’s stock valued at $306,000 after purchasing an additional 1,118 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Tobam bought a new position in shares of Cloudflare in the third quarter worth about $75,000. 82.68% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

About Cloudflare

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.