Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) Shares Gap Up – Still a Buy?

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 changing hands.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

NET has been the topic of a number of analyst reports. UBS Group boosted their price target on Cloudflare from $88.00 to $95.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, November 8th. Jefferies Financial Group increased their target price on Cloudflare from $100.00 to $125.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. Mizuho lifted their price target on Cloudflare from $102.00 to $125.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, December 13th. Scotiabank increased their price objective on shares of Cloudflare from $85.00 to $87.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Friday, November 8th. Finally, BNP Paribas started coverage on Cloudflare in a research report on Tuesday, October 8th. They issued an “underperform” rating and a $65.00 price objective on the stock. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twelve have given a hold rating and thirteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Cloudflare presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $100.48.

Cloudflare Trading Up 5.5 %

The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $101.84 and its 200 day moving average price is $88.66. 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 $38.98 billion, a PE ratio of -436.85 and a beta of 1.10.

Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 7th. The company reported ($0.03) EPS for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of ($0.03). Cloudflare had a negative return on equity of 7.18% and a negative net margin of 5.97%. The company had revenue of $430.08 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $423.65 million. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Cloudflare, Inc. will post -0.1 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, insider Douglas James Kramer sold 3,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, November 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $88.60, for a total value of $265,800.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 185,386 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $16,425,199.60. The trade was a 1.59 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, COO Michelle Zatlyn sold 64,100 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $81.60, for a total value of $5,230,560.00. Following the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 192,177 shares in the company, valued at approximately $15,681,643.20. The trade was a 25.01 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 614,592 shares of company stock valued at $60,146,600 over the last three months. 12.83% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Cloudflare

Institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Marshall Wace LLP lifted its position in Cloudflare by 123.4% during the second quarter. Marshall Wace LLP now owns 1,548,535 shares of the company’s stock valued at $128,265,000 after acquiring an additional 855,334 shares during the last quarter. WIM INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Ltd acquired a new position in shares of Cloudflare during the third quarter worth $25,588,000. American Century Companies Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Cloudflare by 24.8% during the 2nd quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 1,394,732 shares of the company’s stock valued at $115,526,000 after purchasing an additional 277,228 shares during the last quarter. Glynn Capital Management LLC purchased a new position in Cloudflare during the 2nd quarter worth $16,765,000. Finally, International Assets Investment Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Cloudflare during the third quarter worth about $147,160,000. 82.68% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.