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

Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) had its price objective raised by analysts at Guggenheim from $57.00 to $68.00 in a note issued to investors on Friday,Benzinga reports. The firm presently has a “sell” rating on the stock. Guggenheim’s target price suggests a potential downside of 58.86% from the company’s previous close.

Several other analysts have also recently weighed in on NET. Citigroup raised shares of Cloudflare from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their target price for the company from $95.00 to $145.00 in a report on Friday, January 17th. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their target price on shares of Cloudflare from $99.00 to $123.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 3rd. Needham & Company LLC lifted their price target on Cloudflare from $110.00 to $160.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Monday. Robert W. Baird reissued a “neutral” rating and set a $140.00 target price (up previously from $125.00) on shares of Cloudflare in a research report on Monday. Finally, Scotiabank upped their price target on Cloudflare from $87.00 to $110.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 21st. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twelve have given a hold rating and twelve have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $119.56.

Cloudflare Stock Up 16.8 %

NET stock traded up $23.77 on Friday, hitting $165.29. 5,377,988 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 3,382,584. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.32, a quick ratio of 3.37 and a current ratio of 3.37. The stock has a market cap of $56.73 billion, a P/E ratio of -634.87 and a beta of 1.12. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $116.71 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $95.92. Cloudflare has a 12-month low of $66.24 and a 12-month high of $165.00.

Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 6th. The company reported ($0.03) EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.18 by ($0.21). Cloudflare had a negative net margin of 5.97% and a negative return on equity of 7.18%. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Cloudflare will post -0.1 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Cloudflare

In other news, insider Douglas James Kramer sold 2,481 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $131.66, for a total value of $326,648.46. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 175,688 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $23,131,082.08. The trade was a 1.39 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Matthew Prince sold 52,384 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $89.06, for a total transaction of $4,665,319.04. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 192,177 shares in the company, valued at approximately $17,115,283.62. This represents a 21.42 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders have sold 633,738 shares of company stock valued at $69,632,506. 12.83% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. CVA Family Office LLC grew its stake in Cloudflare by 121.3% in the third quarter. CVA Family Office LLC now owns 312 shares of the company’s stock valued at $25,000 after acquiring an additional 171 shares during the period. Capital Performance Advisors LLP bought a new position in shares of Cloudflare during the 3rd quarter valued at about $38,000. Quarry LP boosted its stake in shares of Cloudflare by 38.6% during the third quarter. Quarry LP now owns 478 shares of the company’s stock valued at $39,000 after purchasing an additional 133 shares during the period. Quest Partners LLC purchased a new position in Cloudflare during the 3rd quarter valued at about $54,000. Finally, Larson Financial Group LLC lifted its position in shares of Cloudflare by 1,988.5% in the 4th quarter. Larson Financial Group LLC now owns 543 shares of the company’s stock worth $58,000 after purchasing an additional 517 shares during the period. 82.68% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.