Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) Stock Price Expected to Rise, Royal Bank Of Canada Analyst Says

Key Points

• Royal Bank of Canada has raised its price target for Cloudflare (NYSE: NET) from $210.00 to $228.00, suggesting a potential upside of 8.19% from the current stock price.
• Cloudflare's recent earnings report showed a revenue increase of 27.8% year-over-year, with earnings per share of $0.21, surpassing the consensus estimate.
• Insider trading indicates significant selling by top executives, with CFO Thomas J. Seifert and CEO Matthew Prince both decreasing their stock holdings by over 12%.

Cloudflare (NYSE:NET - Get Free Report) had its price objective upped by stock analysts at Royal Bank Of Canada from $210.00 to $228.00 in a research report issued to clients and investors on Friday,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has an "outperform" rating on the stock. Royal Bank Of Canada's price objective indicates a potential upside of 8.19% from the stock's current price.

Several other analysts have also recently commented on NET. Jefferies Financial Group lowered their price target on Cloudflare from $170.00 to $150.00 and set a "hold" rating for the company in a report on Friday, May 9th. CICC Research upgraded shares of Cloudflare from a "market perform" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $154.00 price objective on the stock in a research note on Monday, May 12th. Oppenheimer restated an "outperform" rating and set a $200.00 price objective (up from $165.00) on shares of Cloudflare in a research note on Thursday, June 5th. UBS Group boosted their price target on shares of Cloudflare from $145.00 to $200.00 and gave the stock a "neutral" rating in a research report on Thursday, July 24th. Finally, Citigroup restated an "outperform" rating on shares of Cloudflare in a report on Monday. Three analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have issued a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Cloudflare presently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $182.48.

Cloudflare Stock Up 1.5%

Shares of NYSE:NET traded up $3.05 during trading on Friday, hitting $210.73. The company's stock had a trading volume of 3,555,570 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,714,405. Cloudflare has a fifty-two week low of $69.26 and a fifty-two week high of $210.98. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $182.66 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $147.77. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.90, a quick ratio of 3.20 and a current ratio of 3.20. The company has a market capitalization of $73.04 billion, a PE ratio of -913.85 and a beta of 1.85.

Cloudflare (NYSE:NET - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 31st. The company reported $0.21 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.18 by $0.03. Cloudflare had a negative return on equity of 6.31% and a negative net margin of 4.62%. The business had revenue of $512.32 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $501.58 million. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $0.20 earnings per share. The company's revenue was up 27.8% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts expect that Cloudflare will post -0.11 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Cloudflare

In other Cloudflare news, CFO Thomas J. Seifert sold 34,270 shares of Cloudflare stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, July 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $200.17, for a total value of $6,859,825.90. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer directly owned 241,550 shares of the company's stock, valued at $48,351,063.50. The trade was a 12.42% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Matthew Prince sold 52,384 shares of Cloudflare stock in a transaction on Thursday, July 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $184.58, for a total transaction of $9,669,038.72. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 381,213 shares in the company, valued at approximately $70,364,295.54. The trade was a 12.08% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 688,062 shares of company stock valued at $121,498,887. 10.89% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Cloudflare

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Aequim Alternative Investments LP raised its position in Cloudflare by 612.7% in the 2nd quarter. Aequim Alternative Investments LP now owns 23,519 shares of the company's stock worth $4,606,000 after purchasing an additional 20,219 shares during the period. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. grew its position in Cloudflare by 58.6% during the second quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 322,600 shares of the company's stock valued at $63,175,000 after buying an additional 119,150 shares during the period. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC raised its position in shares of Cloudflare by 25.5% in the second quarter. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC now owns 22,175 shares of the company's stock worth $4,343,000 after acquiring an additional 4,500 shares during the period. Resonant Capital Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Cloudflare during the 2nd quarter valued at about $229,000. Finally, Wealthfront Advisers LLC increased its stake in shares of Cloudflare by 13.0% in the 2nd quarter. Wealthfront Advisers LLC now owns 31,003 shares of the company's stock valued at $6,071,000 after purchasing an additional 3,556 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 82.68% of the company's stock.

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.

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