Baillie Gifford & Co. Trims Stock Position in Cloudflare, Inc. (NYSE:NET)

Key Points

• Baillie Gifford & Co. reduced its stake in Cloudflare by 14.0%, selling 4,458,339 shares, leaving them with 27,425,821 shares, which represent 2.7% of their holdings.
• Insider trades revealed that CFO Thomas J. Seifert sold 10,000 shares at $198.13 and an additional 34,270 shares at $200.17, decreasing his position in the company by approximately 16.4%.
• Recent analyses from firms like Jefferies and Wells Fargo have resulted in mixed target price adjustments, reflecting varied sentiment in the market regarding Cloudflare’s stock performance.

Baillie Gifford & Co. decreased its holdings in Cloudflare, Inc. (NYSE:NET - Free Report) by 14.0% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 27,425,821 shares of the company's stock after selling 4,458,339 shares during the period. Cloudflare makes up approximately 2.7% of Baillie Gifford & Co.'s investment portfolio, making the stock its 11th largest position. Baillie Gifford & Co. owned about 7.95% of Cloudflare worth $3,090,616,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Mather Group LLC. increased its holdings in shares of Cloudflare by 1,188.2% during the 1st quarter. Mather Group LLC. now owns 219 shares of the company's stock worth $25,000 after buying an additional 202 shares during the last quarter. NBC Securities Inc. acquired a new stake in Cloudflare in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $27,000. GPS Wealth Strategies Group LLC increased its holdings in Cloudflare by 213.4% in the 1st quarter. GPS Wealth Strategies Group LLC now owns 257 shares of the company's stock valued at $29,000 after purchasing an additional 175 shares during the last quarter. MassMutual Private Wealth & Trust FSB increased its holdings in Cloudflare by 115.4% in the 1st quarter. MassMutual Private Wealth & Trust FSB now owns 265 shares of the company's stock valued at $30,000 after purchasing an additional 142 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Gordian Capital Singapore Pte Ltd acquired a new stake in Cloudflare in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $43,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.68% of the company's stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts have commented on the stock. Cowen reissued a "buy" rating on shares of Cloudflare in a research report on Monday, June 16th. Citigroup reissued an "outperform" rating on shares of Cloudflare in a research report on Monday. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price target on shares of Cloudflare from $200.00 to $225.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a research report on Monday, July 21st. DZ Bank cut shares of Cloudflare from a "strong-buy" rating to a "strong sell" rating and set a $170.00 price target for the company. in a research report on Tuesday, July 22nd. Finally, CICC Research raised shares of Cloudflare from a "market perform" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $154.00 price target for the company in a research report on Monday, May 12th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have issued a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company's stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $161.72.

Insider Activity

In related news, CEO Matthew Prince sold 52,384 shares of the business's stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, June 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $179.63, for a total transaction of $9,409,737.92. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 381,213 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $68,477,291.19. The trade was a 12.08% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CFO Thomas J. Seifert sold 41,556 shares of the business's stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $156.78, for a total transaction of $6,515,149.68. Following the sale, the chief financial officer directly owned 241,550 shares in the company, valued at approximately $37,870,209. This represents a 14.68% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 615,332 shares of company stock valued at $106,709,878. 10.89% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Cloudflare Stock Performance

NYSE NET traded up $2.41 during trading on Tuesday, reaching $201.82. The company's stock had a trading volume of 1,537,233 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,692,926. 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 firm has a market cap of $69.95 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -877.49 and a beta of 1.85. Cloudflare, Inc. has a twelve month low of $69.26 and a twelve month high of $202.36. The business's fifty day moving average price is $180.93 and its 200-day moving average price is $147.04.

Cloudflare (NYSE:NET - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 8th. The company reported $0.16 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts' consensus estimates of $0.17 by ($0.01). Cloudflare had a negative return on equity of 6.31% and a negative net margin of 4.62%. The firm had revenue of $479.09 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $469.49 million. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $0.16 earnings per share. The company's revenue was up 26.5% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts anticipate that Cloudflare, Inc. will post -0.11 EPS for the current fiscal year.

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.