Comerica Bank Raises Stock Position in Cloudflare, Inc. $NET

Key Points

• Comerica Bank significantly increased its stake in Cloudflare, Inc. by 46.2% during the first quarter, now holding 12,947 shares valued at approximately $1.46 million.
• Other institutional investors made substantial adjustments to their holdings in Cloudflare, with Fred Alger Management LLC increasing its stake by an impressive 856.3%.
• Analyst ratings for Cloudflare have improved, with several firms raising their price objectives, indicating a general consensus of a Moderate Buy on the stock.

Comerica Bank grew its holdings in Cloudflare, Inc. (NYSE:NET - Free Report) by 46.2% in the first quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 12,947 shares of the company's stock after buying an additional 4,091 shares during the period. Comerica Bank's holdings in Cloudflare were worth $1,459,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in NET. Fred Alger Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Cloudflare by 856.3% during the fourth quarter. Fred Alger Management LLC now owns 934,286 shares of the company's stock valued at $100,604,000 after purchasing an additional 836,591 shares during the period. Nuveen LLC purchased a new position in shares of Cloudflare during the first quarter valued at $88,203,000. American Century Companies Inc. increased its stake in shares of Cloudflare by 34.5% during the first quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 3,037,420 shares of the company's stock valued at $342,287,000 after buying an additional 779,819 shares during the period. Raymond James Financial Inc. increased its stake in shares of Cloudflare by 129.7% during the first quarter. Raymond James Financial Inc. now owns 1,097,235 shares of the company's stock valued at $123,647,000 after buying an additional 619,526 shares during the period. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Cloudflare by 1.8% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 30,836,909 shares of the company's stock valued at $3,475,011,000 after buying an additional 538,850 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.68% of the company's stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

NET has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. CICC Research upgraded Cloudflare from a "market perform" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $154.00 price objective for the company in a research note on Monday, May 12th. Citigroup upped their price objective on Cloudflare from $240.00 to $255.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research note on Monday, August 18th. Robert W. Baird upped their price objective on Cloudflare from $148.00 to $175.00 and gave the stock a "neutral" rating in a research note on Friday, July 25th. Scotiabank upped their price objective on Cloudflare from $135.00 to $200.00 and gave the stock a "sector perform" rating in a research note on Friday, August 1st. Finally, 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. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fifteen have assigned a Buy rating, nine have given a Hold rating and three have issued a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $191.28.

Cloudflare Stock Down 1.0%

Shares of NET stock opened at $206.06 on Thursday. Cloudflare, Inc. has a 1-year low of $74.88 and a 1-year high of $219.00. The stock's fifty day moving average price is $197.41 and its 200 day moving average price is $158.99. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.63, a current ratio of 5.14 and a quick ratio of 5.14. The company has a market cap of $71.81 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -606.07 and a beta of 1.95.

Cloudflare (NYSE:NET - Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, July 31st. The company reported $0.21 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.18 by $0.03. The firm had revenue of $512.32 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $501.58 million. Cloudflare had a negative return on equity of 8.42% and a negative net margin of 6.22%.The firm's revenue for the quarter was up 27.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.20 EPS. Cloudflare has set its FY 2025 guidance at 0.850-0.860 EPS. Q3 2025 guidance at 0.230-0.23 EPS. On average, research analysts expect that Cloudflare, Inc. will post -0.11 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Cloudflare

In related news, CFO Thomas J. Seifert sold 34,270 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction 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 completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer owned 241,550 shares in the company, valued at $48,351,063.50. This trade represents a 12.42% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Matthew Prince sold 52,384 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction on Friday, June 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $171.25, for a total value of $8,970,760.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 381,213 shares of the company's stock, valued at $65,282,726.25. This trade represents a 12.08% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 676,814 shares of company stock worth $128,862,556. Insiders own 10.89% 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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