Vanguard Group Inc. Boosts Stake in Cloudflare, Inc. $NET

Key Points

• Vanguard Group increased its Q4 position by 90,397 shares to hold 32,407,646 shares of Cloudflare, representing about 9.25% of the company and valued at roughly $6.39 billion.
• Insiders sold heavily last quarter—624,247 shares worth about $122.1 million were sold (including notable sales by Michelle Zatlyn and CFO Thomas Seifert), leaving insiders with 10.89% ownership.
• Analysts have a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” with a consensus price target of $232.62, and Cloudflare recently beat EPS and revenue expectations with revenue up 33.6% year‑over‑year.

Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of Cloudflare, Inc. (NYSE:NET - Free Report) by 0.3% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 32,407,646 shares of the company's stock after buying an additional 90,397 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. owned approximately 9.25% of Cloudflare worth $6,389,167,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Invesco Ltd. increased its stake in Cloudflare by 1.3% in the 3rd quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 3,964,733 shares of the company's stock worth $850,792,000 after acquiring an additional 49,485 shares during the last quarter. Groupama Asset Managment grew its holdings in shares of Cloudflare by 82.6% in the third quarter. Groupama Asset Managment now owns 2,100,000 shares of the company's stock valued at $450,639,000 after purchasing an additional 950,000 shares in the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp increased its position in Cloudflare by 1.2% in the third quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 1,909,120 shares of the company's stock worth $409,678,000 after purchasing an additional 21,715 shares during the last quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA raised its stake in Cloudflare by 25.8% during the fourth quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 1,639,661 shares of the company's stock valued at $323,259,000 after purchasing an additional 336,768 shares in the last quarter. Finally, KBC Group NV raised its stake in Cloudflare by 14.3% during the fourth quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 936,921 shares of the company's stock valued at $184,713,000 after purchasing an additional 117,155 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.68% of the company's stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have commented on NET shares. Truist Financial set a $225.00 price objective on shares of Cloudflare in a research report on Tuesday, January 20th. Piper Sandler raised shares of Cloudflare from a "neutral" rating to an "overweight" rating and set a $222.00 price target for the company in a report on Tuesday, April 14th. Cantor Fitzgerald reiterated a "neutral" rating and issued a $224.00 price target on shares of Cloudflare in a research report on Wednesday, February 11th. DZ Bank raised Cloudflare from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating and set a $215.00 price objective on the stock in a research note on Friday, February 13th. Finally, Morgan Stanley set a $245.00 price objective on Cloudflare in a research report on Wednesday, February 11th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nineteen have issued a Buy rating, seven have assigned a Hold rating and three have issued a Sell rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $232.62.

Insider Buying and Selling at Cloudflare

In other Cloudflare news, insider Michelle Zatlyn sold 35,080 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $187.39, for a total value of $6,573,641.20. Following the sale, the insider owned 34,514 shares in the company, valued at $6,467,578.46. This trade represents a 50.41% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CFO Thomas J. Seifert sold 41,557 shares of the business's stock in a transaction on Friday, February 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $185.04, for a total transaction of $7,689,707.28. Following the sale, the chief financial officer directly owned 85,452 shares of the company's stock, valued at $15,812,038.08. This represents a 32.72% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold 624,247 shares of company stock valued at $122,080,874 in the last quarter. 10.89% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Cloudflare Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:NET opened at $207.29 on Monday. The company has a current ratio of 1.98, a quick ratio of 1.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.35. Cloudflare, Inc. has a 12 month low of $117.07 and a 12 month high of $260.00. The company has a market capitalization of $72.96 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -714.77 and a beta of 1.87. The firm's 50-day moving average is $198.63 and its 200 day moving average is $200.31.

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 the consensus estimate of $0.27 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $614.51 million during 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%.The company's revenue for the quarter was up 33.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $0.19 earnings per share. Research analysts predict that Cloudflare, Inc. will post -0.11 EPS for the current year.

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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