Cloudflare Target of Unusually High Options Trading (NYSE:NET)

Cloudflare, Inc. (NYSE:NET) was the recipient of some unusual options trading on Friday. Stock investors bought 32,322 call options on the company. This represents an increase of approximately 100% compared to the typical daily volume of 16,156 call options.

Insider Activity at Cloudflare

In other news, insider Michelle Zatlyn sold 35,099 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $164.84, for a total value of $5,785,719.16. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CAO Janel Riley sold 4,327 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $167.60, for a total value of $725,205.20. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 74,698 shares in the company, valued at $12,519,384.80. The trade was a 5.48 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 492,492 shares of company stock worth $63,757,685 over the last quarter. Insiders own 12.83% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Cloudflare

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Hartline Investment Corp lifted its position in Cloudflare by 1.5% in the fourth quarter. Hartline Investment Corp now owns 264,336 shares of the company’s stock valued at $28,464,000 after buying an additional 3,957 shares during the last quarter. Birchcreek Wealth Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Cloudflare in the 4th quarter worth approximately $215,000. Strategic Blueprint LLC purchased a new position in shares of Cloudflare during the 4th quarter worth approximately $265,000. Clarendon Private LLC purchased a new position in shares of Cloudflare during the 4th quarter worth approximately $293,000. Finally, Savant Capital LLC acquired a new stake in Cloudflare in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $237,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.68% of the company’s stock.

Cloudflare Stock Up 6.5 %

Shares of NET opened at $132.42 on Friday. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $116.02 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $117.76. The company has a quick ratio of 3.37, a current ratio of 3.37 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.32. The company has a market capitalization of $45.69 billion, a PE ratio of -601.91 and a beta of 1.78. Cloudflare has a 52-week low of $66.24 and a 52-week high of $177.37.

Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, May 8th. The company reported $0.16 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.17 by ($0.01). Cloudflare had a negative return on equity of 5.52% and a negative net margin of 4.72%. The firm had revenue of $479.09 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $469.49 million. During the same period last year, the firm earned $0.16 earnings per share. Cloudflare’s revenue for the quarter was up 26.5% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Cloudflare will post -0.11 EPS for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have recently commented on NET. JMP Securities raised their price objective on shares of Cloudflare from $135.00 to $180.00 and gave the stock a “market outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, February 7th. Citigroup upgraded shares of Cloudflare from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price target for the company from $95.00 to $145.00 in a research report on Friday, January 17th. Cantor Fitzgerald lifted their price objective on shares of Cloudflare from $111.00 to $149.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, February 7th. Capital One Financial raised shares of Cloudflare from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Thursday. Finally, UBS Group lifted their price target on Cloudflare from $135.00 to $145.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have given a hold rating, twelve have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $142.57.

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.