Principal Financial Group Inc. Increases Stock Position in Cloudflare, Inc. $NET

Key Points

• Principal Financial Group boosted its Cloudflare stake by 75.8% in Q1, buying 105,649 additional shares and bringing its holding to 245,019 shares worth about $50.6 million.
• Cloudflare reported a strong quarter with EPS of $0.25 versus the $0.23 estimate and revenue of $639.75 million, up 33.5% year over year. The company also issued FY2026 guidance of 1.190–1.200 EPS.
• Analyst sentiment remains mostly positive: several firms raised price targets or reiterated bullish ratings, including Morgan Stanley increasing its target to $322. However, insiders have also been selling shares, including CEO Matthew Prince’s July sale under a pre-arranged trading plan.

Principal Financial Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Cloudflare, Inc. (NYSE:NET - Free Report) by 75.8% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 245,019 shares of the company's stock after buying an additional 105,649 shares during the period. Principal Financial Group Inc. owned approximately 0.07% of Cloudflare worth $50,557,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other large investors have also made changes to their positions in NET. Chicago Partners Investment Group LLC grew its position in Cloudflare by 13.2% during the first quarter. Chicago Partners Investment Group LLC now owns 2,652 shares of the company's stock valued at $550,000 after acquiring an additional 309 shares during the period. Tradewinds LLC. purchased a new position in shares of Cloudflare in the 1st quarter worth about $219,000. LGT Fund Management Co Ltd. acquired a new position in shares of Cloudflare in the 1st quarter valued at about $8,108,000. Global Assets Advisory LLC acquired a new position in shares of Cloudflare in the 1st quarter valued at about $135,000. Finally, Anchor Investment Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Cloudflare in the 1st quarter valued at about $484,000. 82.68% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Cloudflare Price Performance

Shares of NET stock opened at $277.84 on Friday. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $236.36 and a 200-day simple moving average of $209.95. The company has a market capitalization of $98.21 billion, a PE ratio of -1,111.37, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 277.70 and a beta of 1.67. Cloudflare, Inc. has a twelve month low of $158.83 and a twelve month high of $291.00. The company has a current ratio of 1.96, a quick ratio of 1.96 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.29.

Cloudflare (NYSE:NET - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 7th. The company reported $0.25 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.23 by $0.02. The firm had revenue of $639.75 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $620.83 million. Cloudflare had a negative net margin of 3.72% and a negative return on equity of 5.65%. The firm's quarterly revenue was up 33.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.16 EPS. Cloudflare has set its FY 2026 guidance at 1.190-1.200 EPS and its Q2 2026 guidance at 0.270-0.270 EPS. Equities research analysts anticipate that Cloudflare, Inc. will post 0.02 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Key Stories Impacting Cloudflare

Here are the key news stories impacting Cloudflare this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Morgan Stanley raised its price target on Cloudflare from $305 to $322 and reiterated an overweight rating, signaling stronger confidence in the company’s upside. This kind of analyst upgrade can help support the stock. Morgan Stanley price target increase on Cloudflare
• Positive Sentiment: Cloudflare launched Precursor, a new bot-management product designed to detect sophisticated automated attacks in real time. The launch reinforces the company’s cybersecurity and privacy narrative, which is a key driver of investor optimism. Cloudflare launches Precursor
• Positive Sentiment: Recent commentary continues to highlight Cloudflare as a beneficiary of rising demand for cybersecurity and AI infrastructure, and the stock has also been mentioned favorably in momentum-stock and “best cybersecurity stocks” roundups. Cloudflare momentum stock article
• Neutral Sentiment: Other recent articles emphasize Cloudflare’s strong three-year run and rising fair-value estimates, but also note that the shares already trade at a rich valuation. That may limit near-term upside if growth does not keep accelerating. Cloudflare valuation article
• Neutral Sentiment: The stock also got a “gains as market dips” mention, reflecting relative strength versus the broader market rather than a company-specific catalyst. Cloudflare gains as market dips article

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Piper Sandler reissued an "overweight" rating on shares of Cloudflare in a research report on Wednesday, June 10th. Susquehanna boosted their price objective on shares of Cloudflare from $190.00 to $200.00 and gave the stock a "neutral" rating in a research note on Monday, May 11th. BTIG Research increased their price objective on shares of Cloudflare from $269.00 to $314.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research report on Friday, July 10th. Scotiabank raised shares of Cloudflare from a "sector perform" rating to a "sector outperform" rating and raised their target price for the company from $225.00 to $300.00 in a research note on Tuesday, July 7th. Finally, Citizens Jmp reissued a "market outperform" rating and issued a $270.00 target price on shares of Cloudflare in a research note on Monday, June 15th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-one have issued a Buy rating, eight have assigned a Hold rating and four have issued a Sell rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Cloudflare has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $253.41.

Insider Activity

In other Cloudflare news, CEO Matthew Prince sold 52,422 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, July 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $249.09, for a total transaction of $13,057,795.98. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, insider Michelle Zatlyn sold 35,080 shares of Cloudflare stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, May 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $213.98, for a total value of $7,506,418.40. Following the sale, the insider owned 47,425 shares in the company, valued at $10,148,001.50. This represents a 42.52% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. In the last quarter, insiders sold 616,185 shares of company stock worth $137,831,055. Insiders own 10.66% of the company's stock.

About Cloudflare

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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