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

Key Points

• Needham & Company raised its price target on Cloudflare to $280 from $250 and kept a buy rating, implying about 18.7% upside from the prior close.
• Cloudflare posted a strong quarterly report, with EPS of $0.25 beating estimates and revenue of $639.76 million topping forecasts, while revenue grew 33.5% year over year.
• Despite the upbeat outlook, several insiders recently sold shares, including CEO Matthew Prince and insider Michelle Zatlyn, while Wall Street remains mixed with a Moderate Buy consensus and a $241.32 average target.

Cloudflare (NYSE:NET - Get Free Report) had its target price lifted by research analysts at Needham & Company LLC from $250.00 to $280.00 in a research report issued on Wednesday,Benzinga reports. The firm presently has a "buy" rating on the stock. Needham & Company LLC's price objective would indicate a potential upside of 18.71% from the company's previous close.

A number of other research firms have also recently commented on NET. The Goldman Sachs Group cut shares of Cloudflare from a "buy" rating to a "sell" rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 15th. KeyCorp lowered Cloudflare from an "overweight" rating to a "hold" rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 15th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a "sell (d-)" rating on shares of Cloudflare in a report on Monday, April 20th. Royal Bank Of Canada reiterated an "outperform" rating on shares of Cloudflare in a research report on Friday, May 22nd. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus set a $260.00 price target on shares of Cloudflare in a report on Friday, May 8th. Eighteen equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, seven have issued a Hold rating and three have issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $241.32.

Cloudflare Stock Performance

NET stock opened at $235.88 on Wednesday. Cloudflare has a one year low of $158.83 and a one year high of $276.82. The firm has a market cap of $83.38 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -943.50, a PEG ratio of 4,156.04 and a beta of 1.70. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.29, a quick ratio of 1.96 and a current ratio of 1.96. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $214.74 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $201.01.

Cloudflare (NYSE:NET - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 7th. The company reported $0.25 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $0.23 by $0.02. The firm had revenue of $639.76 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 company's quarterly revenue was up 33.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $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.

Insider Transactions at Cloudflare

In related news, insider Michelle Zatlyn sold 25,641 shares of the business's stock in a transaction on Tuesday, May 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $211.83, for a total value of $5,431,533.03. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 47,425 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $10,046,037.75. The trade was a 35.09% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Matthew Prince sold 52,384 shares of the company's stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $210.66, for a total transaction of $11,035,213.44. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 25,550 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $5,382,363. This trade represents a 67.22% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders have sold 527,784 shares of company stock worth $111,803,817 in the last ninety days. Company insiders own 10.89% of the company's stock.

Institutional Trading of Cloudflare

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of NET. Parallel Advisors LLC lifted its stake in Cloudflare by 8.0% in the 1st quarter. Parallel Advisors LLC now owns 5,510 shares of the company's stock worth $1,137,000 after purchasing an additional 406 shares in the last quarter. Verus Capital Partners LLC increased its holdings in shares of Cloudflare by 7.5% in the first quarter. Verus Capital Partners LLC now owns 1,345 shares of the company's stock valued at $278,000 after purchasing an additional 94 shares during the last quarter. Essential Partners LLC lifted its position in Cloudflare by 14.5% during the first quarter. Essential Partners LLC now owns 402 shares of the company's stock worth $83,000 after buying an additional 51 shares in the last quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC lifted its position in Cloudflare by 583.1% during the first quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC now owns 241,367 shares of the company's stock worth $49,805,000 after buying an additional 206,032 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Centaurus Financial Inc. boosted its stake in Cloudflare by 4.8% during the first quarter. Centaurus Financial Inc. now owns 1,780 shares of the company's stock worth $367,000 after buying an additional 82 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.68% of the company's stock.

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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