Stifel Nicolaus Forecasts Strong Price Appreciation for Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) Stock

Key Points

• Stifel Nicolaus has raised its price target for Cloudflare stock (NYSE: NET) from $175.00 to $230.00, indicating a potential upside of 12.20% from its current price, and maintains a "buy" rating.
• Cloudflare recently reported $0.21 EPS for the quarter, exceeding analysts' expectations, with revenue growth of 27.8% year-over-year.
• Insider transactions showed significant selling by executives, with CEO Matthew Prince selling 52,384 shares valued at over $9 million, leading to a 12.08% decrease in ownership.

Cloudflare (NYSE:NET - Get Free Report) had its price target upped by research analysts at Stifel Nicolaus from $175.00 to $230.00 in a note issued to investors on Friday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has a "buy" rating on the stock. Stifel Nicolaus' price target points to a potential upside of 12.20% from the company's current price.

A number of other equities analysts also recently commented on the stock. Susquehanna reduced their price objective on shares of Cloudflare from $170.00 to $140.00 and set a "neutral" rating for the company in a report on Monday, May 12th. JMP Securities raised their price objective on shares of Cloudflare from $180.00 to $225.00 and gave the stock a "market outperform" rating in a report on Monday. KeyCorp lifted their price target on shares of Cloudflare from $210.00 to $235.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a report on Friday. CICC Research raised shares of Cloudflare from a "market perform" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $154.00 price target for the company in a report on Monday, May 12th. Finally, Robert W. Baird lifted their price target on shares of Cloudflare from $148.00 to $175.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a report on Friday, July 25th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have issued a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $179.28.

Cloudflare Stock Performance

NET traded down $2.70 on Friday, reaching $204.99. 3,061,668 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 3,710,451. The company's 50-day moving average price is $182.66 and its 200 day moving average price is $147.77. Cloudflare has a fifty-two week low of $69.26 and a fifty-two week high of $210.98. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.90, a current ratio of 3.20 and a quick ratio of 3.20. The firm has a market capitalization of $71.05 billion, a PE ratio of -893.83 and a beta of 1.85.

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

Insider Transactions at Cloudflare

In related news, CEO Matthew Prince sold 52,384 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, July 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $184.58, for a total transaction of $9,669,038.72. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 381,213 shares in the company, valued at $70,364,295.54. This represents a 12.08% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CFO Thomas J. Seifert sold 59,130 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, July 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $200.30, for a total value of $11,843,739.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer directly owned 241,550 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $48,382,465. The trade was a 19.67% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 688,062 shares of company stock worth $121,498,887 over the last quarter. Insiders own 10.89% of the company's stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in NET. Hilltop National Bank bought a new position in Cloudflare during the second quarter worth about $36,000. Ameritas Advisory Services LLC bought a new position in Cloudflare during the second quarter worth about $39,000. Mather Group LLC. lifted its holdings in Cloudflare by 1,188.2% during the first quarter. Mather Group LLC. now owns 219 shares of the company's stock worth $25,000 after acquiring an additional 202 shares in the last quarter. Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. bought a new position in Cloudflare during the second quarter worth about $45,000. Finally, NBC Securities Inc. bought a new position in Cloudflare during the first quarter worth about $27,000. 82.68% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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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