Needham & Company LLC Issues Positive Forecast for Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) Stock Price

Key Points

• Needham & Company LLC has increased its price target for Cloudflare (NYSE: NET) from $200.00 to $240.00, suggesting a potential upside of 15.62% from the previous close.
• Cloudflare reported $0.21 earnings per share, exceeding expectations, with revenue up 27.8% year-over-year, amounting to $512.32 million for the quarter.
• Insiders, including CEO Matthew Prince, sold significant shares recently, leading to a 12.08% decrease in their ownership, while institutional investors now control 82.68% of the company’s stock.

Cloudflare (NYSE:NET - Get Free Report) had its price objective lifted by research analysts at Needham & Company LLC from $200.00 to $240.00 in a note issued to investors on Friday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage presently has a "buy" rating on the stock. Needham & Company LLC's price objective suggests a potential upside of 15.62% from the company's previous close.

NET has been the topic of several other reports. Cowen reaffirmed a "buy" rating on shares of Cloudflare in a research report on Monday, June 16th. Morgan Stanley increased their price objective on Cloudflare from $225.00 to $235.00 and gave the stock an "overweight" rating in a report on Friday. Oppenheimer reiterated an "outperform" rating and issued a $200.00 target price (up from $165.00) on shares of Cloudflare in a research note on Thursday, June 5th. Jefferies Financial Group dropped their price target on shares of Cloudflare from $170.00 to $150.00 and set a "hold" rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, May 9th. Finally, JMP Securities lifted their price objective on shares of Cloudflare from $180.00 to $225.00 and gave the company a "market outperform" rating in a research note on Monday. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have assigned a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company's stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $171.44.

Cloudflare Stock Up 3.3%

Shares of Cloudflare stock opened at $207.57 on Friday. Cloudflare has a 1 year low of $69.26 and a 1 year high of $210.98. The company has a market cap of $71.95 billion, a P/E ratio of -902.48 and a beta of 1.85. The company has a current ratio of 3.20, a quick ratio of 3.20 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.90. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $182.66 and a 200 day moving average price of $147.77.

Cloudflare (NYSE:NET - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 31st. The company reported $0.21 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.18 by $0.03. The firm had revenue of $512.32 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $501.58 million. Cloudflare had a negative net margin of 4.62% and a negative return on equity of 6.31%. The company's revenue for the quarter was up 27.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $0.20 EPS. As a group, analysts expect that Cloudflare will post -0.11 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Cloudflare

In other news, CEO Matthew Prince sold 52,384 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, June 13th. The shares were 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 in the company, valued at approximately $65,282,726.25. This represents a 12.08% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Michelle Zatlyn sold 35,098 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $156.83, for a total transaction of $5,504,419.34. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 6,390 shares of the company's stock, valued at $1,002,143.70. The trade was a 84.60% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 688,062 shares of company stock worth $121,498,887. Insiders own 10.89% of the company's stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in NET. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Cloudflare by 58.6% during the second quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 322,600 shares of the company's stock valued at $63,175,000 after acquiring an additional 119,150 shares during the period. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC grew its holdings in shares of Cloudflare by 25.5% in the 2nd quarter. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC now owns 22,175 shares of the company's stock worth $4,343,000 after purchasing an additional 4,500 shares during the last quarter. Resonant Capital Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Cloudflare during the 2nd quarter worth about $229,000. Wealthfront Advisers LLC lifted its holdings in Cloudflare by 13.0% during the 2nd quarter. Wealthfront Advisers LLC now owns 31,003 shares of the company's stock valued at $6,071,000 after purchasing an additional 3,556 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Atlatl Advisers LLC increased its position in Cloudflare by 2.9% in the 2nd quarter. Atlatl Advisers LLC now owns 3,160 shares of the company's stock valued at $619,000 after acquiring an additional 90 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.68% 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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