Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) Raised to Overweight at Morgan Stanley

Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) was upgraded by equities research analysts at Morgan Stanley from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating in a research report issued on Monday, Marketbeat.com reports. The brokerage currently has a $130.00 price target on the stock, up from their previous price target of $92.00. Morgan Stanley’s target price would indicate a potential upside of 23.94% from the stock’s current price.

Several other brokerages also recently commented on NET. Scotiabank raised their target price on Cloudflare from $85.00 to $87.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Friday, November 8th. Susquehanna boosted their price objective on Cloudflare from $80.00 to $85.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, August 5th. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price target on shares of Cloudflare from $105.00 to $110.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, November 8th. Piper Sandler upped their price objective on shares of Cloudflare from $83.00 to $92.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, November 8th. Finally, BNP Paribas started coverage on shares of Cloudflare in a research note on Tuesday, October 8th. They issued an “underperform” rating and a $65.00 price objective on the stock. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have assigned a hold rating and eleven have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Cloudflare has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $94.40.

Cloudflare Price Performance

Shares of NET opened at $104.89 on Monday. The company has a market capitalization of $36.00 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -403.42 and a beta of 1.10. The business has a 50-day moving average of $91.03 and a 200-day moving average of $82.94. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.32, a current ratio of 3.37 and a quick ratio of 3.37. Cloudflare has a 1 year low of $66.24 and a 1 year high of $116.00.

Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 7th. The company reported ($0.03) EPS for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of ($0.03). The company had revenue of $430.08 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $423.65 million. Cloudflare had a negative net margin of 5.97% and a negative return on equity of 7.18%. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Cloudflare will post -0.11 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, insider Douglas James Kramer sold 3,000 shares of Cloudflare stock in a transaction on Friday, November 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $88.60, for a total transaction of $265,800.00. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 185,386 shares in the company, valued at approximately $16,425,199.60. The trade was a 1.59 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO Matthew Prince sold 52,384 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, September 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $76.55, for a total value of $4,009,995.20. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 10,761 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $823,754.55. The trade was a 82.96 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 536,568 shares of company stock valued at $47,573,767 over the last 90 days. Company insiders own 12.83% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in NET. Baillie Gifford & Co. boosted its stake in Cloudflare by 8.5% during the second quarter. Baillie Gifford & Co. now owns 32,722,670 shares of the company’s stock valued at $2,710,419,000 after buying an additional 2,575,396 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Cloudflare by 2.6% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 4,834,558 shares of the company’s stock valued at $390,130,000 after acquiring an additional 121,810 shares during the last quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Cloudflare by 1.2% in the second quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings Inc. now owns 1,661,425 shares of the company’s stock valued at $137,616,000 after purchasing an additional 19,446 shares in the last quarter. Marshall Wace LLP increased its position in Cloudflare by 123.4% in the second quarter. Marshall Wace LLP now owns 1,548,535 shares of the company’s stock worth $128,265,000 after purchasing an additional 855,334 shares during the last quarter. Finally, American Century Companies Inc. raised its stake in Cloudflare by 24.8% during the second quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 1,394,732 shares of the company’s stock valued at $115,526,000 after purchasing an additional 277,228 shares in the last quarter. 82.68% of the stock is currently 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.