Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) Shares Gap Up – Here’s What Happened

Shares of Cloudflare, Inc. (NYSE:NET) gapped up before the market opened on Thursday . The stock had previously closed at $107.68, but opened at $114.50. Cloudflare shares last traded at $114.48, with a volume of 1,008,140 shares trading hands.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Jefferies Financial Group lifted their price objective on shares of Cloudflare from $100.00 to $125.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, December 19th. Morgan Stanley raised Cloudflare from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $92.00 to $130.00 in a report on Monday, December 2nd. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Cloudflare from a “sell” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price objective for the company from $77.00 to $140.00 in a research note on Thursday. Scotiabank boosted their price target on shares of Cloudflare from $85.00 to $87.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a report on Friday, November 8th. Finally, Piper Sandler raised their price objective on shares of Cloudflare from $83.00 to $92.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, November 8th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twelve have issued a hold rating and thirteen have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $101.37.

Cloudflare Price Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.32, a current ratio of 3.37 and a quick ratio of 3.37. The firm has a market capitalization of $39.37 billion, a PE ratio of -441.27 and a beta of 1.10. The business’s 50 day moving average is $102.82 and its two-hundred day moving average is $89.09.

Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 7th. The company reported ($0.03) earnings per share for the quarter, meeting analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.03). The business had revenue of $430.08 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $423.65 million. Cloudflare had a negative return on equity of 7.18% and a negative net margin of 5.97%. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Cloudflare, Inc. will post -0.1 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity

In other Cloudflare news, CFO Thomas J. Seifert sold 15,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, October 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $90.88, for a total value of $1,363,200.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 281,403 shares in the company, valued at approximately $25,573,904.64. The trade was a 5.06 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider Douglas James Kramer sold 3,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $88.60, for a total transaction of $265,800.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 185,386 shares in the company, valued at $16,425,199.60. This represents a 1.59 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 614,592 shares of company stock valued at $60,146,600. Corporate insiders own 12.83% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Cloudflare

Several institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in NET. Marshall Wace LLP grew its stake in shares of Cloudflare by 123.4% in the second quarter. Marshall Wace LLP now owns 1,548,535 shares of the company’s stock worth $128,265,000 after purchasing an additional 855,334 shares during the last quarter. WIM INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Ltd purchased a new position in shares of Cloudflare during the third quarter valued at approximately $25,588,000. American Century Companies Inc. lifted its stake in Cloudflare by 24.8% in the second quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 1,394,732 shares of the company’s stock worth $115,526,000 after acquiring an additional 277,228 shares during the period. International Assets Investment Management LLC bought a new stake in Cloudflare in the third quarter valued at $147,160,000. Finally, Parnassus Investments LLC increased its position in Cloudflare by 1,851.9% during the 3rd quarter. Parnassus Investments LLC now owns 138,410 shares of the company’s stock valued at $11,196,000 after purchasing an additional 131,319 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.68% of the company’s stock.

Cloudflare Company Profile

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.