The Goldman Sachs Group Upgrades Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) to Buy

Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) was upgraded by investment analysts at The Goldman Sachs Group from a “sell” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report issued on Thursday, Marketbeat reports. The firm currently has a $140.00 price objective on the stock, up from their previous price objective of $77.00. The Goldman Sachs Group’s price objective would indicate a potential upside of 30.01% from the company’s current price.

NET has been the topic of a number of other reports. BNP Paribas began coverage on Cloudflare in a research note on Tuesday, October 8th. They set an “underperform” rating and a $65.00 price target on the stock. Jefferies Financial Group upped their price objective on shares of Cloudflare from $100.00 to $125.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, December 19th. Mizuho lifted their price objective on shares of Cloudflare from $102.00 to $125.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, December 13th. Stifel Nicolaus upgraded shares of Cloudflare from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their target price for the stock from $95.00 to $136.00 in a report on Tuesday, December 17th. Finally, UBS Group lifted their price target on Cloudflare from $88.00 to $95.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, November 8th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twelve have issued a hold rating and thirteen have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $100.48.

Cloudflare Price Performance

Shares of NET opened at $107.68 on Thursday. The firm has a market cap of $36.96 billion, a PE ratio of -414.15 and a beta of 1.10. Cloudflare has a 52-week low of $66.24 and a 52-week high of $119.42. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $101.84 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $88.66. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.32, a quick ratio of 3.37 and a current ratio of 3.37.

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

Insider Activity at Cloudflare

In related news, CEO Matthew Prince sold 52,384 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, December 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $111.90, for a total transaction of $5,861,769.60. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 10,762 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,204,267.80. The trade was a 82.96 % decrease in their position. The transaction 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 dated 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 owns 185,386 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $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 three months, insiders have sold 614,592 shares of company stock worth $60,146,600. Company insiders own 12.83% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Cloudflare

Large investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC lifted its stake in Cloudflare by 212.2% in the 2nd quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 868 shares of the company’s stock worth $72,000 after purchasing an additional 590 shares in the last quarter. Commonwealth Equity Services LLC raised its holdings in shares of Cloudflare by 18.7% in the 2nd quarter. Commonwealth Equity Services LLC now owns 55,105 shares of the company’s stock valued at $4,564,000 after acquiring an additional 8,678 shares in the last quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp boosted its position in shares of Cloudflare by 327.8% during the 2nd quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 30,697 shares of the company’s stock valued at $2,543,000 after acquiring an additional 23,521 shares during the last quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc increased its position in shares of Cloudflare by 9.2% in the second quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc now owns 10,084 shares of the company’s stock worth $835,000 after purchasing an additional 847 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Rhumbline Advisers raised its stake in Cloudflare by 0.9% in the second quarter. Rhumbline Advisers now owns 398,696 shares of the company’s stock valued at $33,024,000 after purchasing an additional 3,395 shares in the last quarter. 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.