Polar Asset Management Partners Inc. Purchases Shares of 6,057 Cloudflare, Inc. $NET

Key Points

• Polar Asset Management Partners initiated a new position in Cloudflare, acquiring 6,057 shares (~$1.3M) in Q3, joining other institutional buyers as institutions now own 82.68% of the stock.
• Company insiders have been heavy sellers recently — 653,799 shares (~$125M) sold over the past 90 days (insiders own 10.89%) — a potential headwind for sentiment despite positive news flow.
• Cloudflare beat Q results with revenue up 33.6% year-over-year and a slight EPS beat, but remains unprofitable (negative net margin/PE); consensus is a “Moderate Buy” with an average target of $233.38.

Polar Asset Management Partners Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Cloudflare, Inc. (NYSE:NET - Free Report) in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund acquired 6,057 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $1,300,000.

Several other large investors also recently made changes to their positions in the business. CIBC Private Wealth Group LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Cloudflare by 7.6% during the 3rd quarter. CIBC Private Wealth Group LLC now owns 579,137 shares of the company's stock valued at $124,277,000 after acquiring an additional 41,095 shares in the last quarter. CIBC Bancorp USA Inc. acquired a new stake in Cloudflare in the 3rd quarter valued at $2,389,000. Oarsman Capital Inc. acquired a new stake in Cloudflare in the 3rd quarter valued at $261,000. Centaurus Financial Inc. raised its position in Cloudflare by 60.7% in the third quarter. Centaurus Financial Inc. now owns 2,083 shares of the company's stock valued at $447,000 after purchasing an additional 787 shares during the period. Finally, Caerus Investment Advisors LLC purchased a new position in Cloudflare in the third quarter valued at about $226,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.68% of the company's stock.

Cloudflare Price Performance

Shares of NYSE NET opened at $215.14 on Friday. Cloudflare, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $89.42 and a fifty-two week high of $260.00. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $187.69 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $203.31. The company has a quick ratio of 1.98, a current ratio of 1.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.35. The firm has a market cap of $75.36 billion, a PE ratio of -741.85 and a beta of 1.98.

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

Analyst Ratings Changes

NET has been the subject of several analyst reports. Morgan Stanley set a $245.00 target price on Cloudflare in a research report on Wednesday, February 11th. Piper Sandler raised their target price on Cloudflare from $220.00 to $222.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a report on Wednesday, February 11th. Guggenheim upped their price target on Cloudflare from $117.00 to $140.00 and gave the stock a "sell" rating in a report on Wednesday, February 11th. Mizuho lowered their price objective on shares of Cloudflare from $280.00 to $255.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 21st. Finally, Weiss Ratings reiterated a "sell (d-)" rating on shares of Cloudflare in a research note on Wednesday, January 21st. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eighteen have given a Buy rating, eight have issued a Hold rating and two have given a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $233.38.

Insider Transactions at Cloudflare

In other Cloudflare news, CFO Thomas J. Seifert sold 10,341 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, March 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $212.30, for a total transaction of $2,195,394.30. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer directly owned 224,625 shares in the company, valued at $47,687,887.50. This represents a 4.40% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CAO Janel Riley sold 23,332 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $190.00, for a total transaction of $4,433,080.00. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer directly owned 56,791 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $10,790,290. This represents a 29.12% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold a total of 653,799 shares of company stock valued at $124,962,286 over the last ninety days. 10.89% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Cloudflare News Roundup

Here are the key news stories impacting Cloudflare this week:

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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