Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) Stock Price Down 7.6% on Insider Selling

Key Points

• Cloudflare shares dropped 7.6% after CEO Matthew Prince sold about 104,109 shares (roughly $22.05M) across April 6–8 under a pre‑arranged Rule 10b5‑1 plan; the stock hit $196.45 intraday and mid‑day volume was 919,231 shares, ~79% below the average session volume.
• Analysts remain mostly positive — consensus rating Moderate Buy with a target of $233.38 — while Cloudflare posted Q4 revenue up 33.6% and a slight EPS beat, but still shows a negative net margin (-4.72%), reflecting growth with ongoing profitability headwinds.

Cloudflare, Inc. (NYSE:NET - Get Free Report)'s share price fell 7.6% on Thursday after an insider sold shares in the company. The stock traded as low as $196.45 and last traded at $195.1910. 919,231 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 79% from the average session volume of 4,464,438 shares. The stock had previously closed at $211.25.

Specifically, CEO Matthew Prince sold 51,725 shares of the business's stock in a transaction on Wednesday, April 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $213.59, for a total transaction of $11,047,942.75. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 659 shares in the company, valued at $140,755.81. The trade was a 98.74% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction 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, CEO Matthew Prince sold 52,384 shares of the business's stock in a transaction on Monday, April 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $210.02, for a total transaction of $11,001,687.68. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. In other news, CEO Matthew Prince sold 659 shares of the business's stock in a transaction on Wednesday, April 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $223.62, for a total transaction of $147,365.58. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 406,315 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $90,860,160.30. The trade was a 0.16% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts have recently issued reports on NET shares. TD Cowen reissued a "buy" rating on shares of Cloudflare in a report on Tuesday, January 27th. Morgan Stanley set a $245.00 price target on shares of Cloudflare in a report on Wednesday, February 11th. Susquehanna set a $190.00 price target on shares of Cloudflare in a report on Thursday, February 12th. Citigroup boosted their price target on shares of Cloudflare from $260.00 to $265.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a report on Thursday, February 12th. Finally, BTIG Research boosted their price target on shares of Cloudflare from $199.00 to $243.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a report on Wednesday, February 11th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eighteen have assigned a Buy rating, eight have issued a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Cloudflare currently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $233.38.

More Cloudflare News

Here are the key news stories impacting Cloudflare this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Cloudflare and GoDaddy announced a strategic partnership to integrate Cloudflare’s AI Crawl Control and support verifiable bot identity standards, expanding distribution for AI‑related controls and positioning Cloudflare as a platform player in the emerging “agentic” web — a potential revenue and adoption booster for security/edge products. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Virtru added object‑level data governance support for Cloudflare R2, enabling attribute‑based access controls on stored objects — this strengthens R2’s enterprise security proposition and could help drive higher R2 usage and monetization. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Cloudflare accelerated its timeline for full post‑quantum security to 2029, underscoring product leadership on cryptographic resilience — a differentiation that can matter for large security‑sensitive customers and renewals. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Recent analyst commentary and sector notes highlight Cloudflare’s strong top‑line momentum (Q4 revenue +~34%) and positioning in security, edge compute and AI inference, supporting the longer‑term growth thesis for the stock. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Sell‑side consensus remains constructive (consensus rating: “Moderate Buy” with mid‑$200s price targets), which provides some analyst support but reflects mixed price targets and differing margin/valuation views. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Market write‑ups noted recent short‑term outperformance vs. peers — helpful for momentum flows but not a new fundamental catalyst. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: CEO Matthew Prince sold large blocks of shares across April 6–8 (totaling roughly 100K+ shares across filings) under a Rule 10b5‑1 plan; while pre‑arranged plans reduce signaling, the size and timing of sales can create near‑term selling pressure and negative investor sentiment. Read More.

Cloudflare Stock Down 7.6%

The firm has a market cap of $68.70 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -676.65 and a beta of 1.87. The firm's fifty day moving average is $194.55 and its two-hundred day moving average is $202.49. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.35, a current ratio of 1.98 and a quick ratio of 1.98.

Cloudflare (NYSE:NET - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 10th. The company reported $0.28 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.27 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $614.51 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $591.67 million. Cloudflare had a negative net margin of 4.72% and a negative return on equity of 7.24%. The company's quarterly revenue was up 33.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $0.19 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Cloudflare, Inc. will post -0.11 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Cloudflare

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of NET. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in Cloudflare by 0.3% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 32,407,646 shares of the company's stock valued at $6,389,167,000 after acquiring an additional 90,397 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in Cloudflare by 4.2% in the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 6,018,175 shares of the company's stock valued at $1,184,044,000 after acquiring an additional 241,981 shares during the last quarter. First Trust Advisors LP lifted its holdings in Cloudflare by 1.6% in the 4th quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 4,019,157 shares of the company's stock valued at $792,377,000 after acquiring an additional 63,198 shares during the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. lifted its holdings in Cloudflare by 1.3% in the 3rd quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 3,964,733 shares of the company's stock valued at $850,792,000 after acquiring an additional 49,485 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Cloudflare in the 4th quarter valued at about $718,316,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.68% of the company's stock.

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.

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