Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) Sets New 12-Month High – Should You Buy?

Cloudflare, Inc. (NYSE:NET)’s stock price hit a new 52-week high on Thursday . The company traded as high as $305.00 and last traded at $291.7080, with a volume of 3953788 shares traded. The stock had previously closed at $301.33.

Key Headlines Impacting Cloudflare

Here are the key news stories impacting Cloudflare this week:

• Positive Sentiment: New AI security tools expand Cloudflare’s addressable market. Cloudflare launched Identity-Aware AI Gateway, which allows companies to monitor employee and AI-agent use, control spending, identify users, and flag risky content. The product could support demand for Cloudflare’s security and connectivity platform as businesses adopt AI. Cloudflare Gives Companies Full Visibility to Audit and Analyze AI Use
• Positive Sentiment: Cloudflare OS strengthens its AI infrastructure strategy. The company announced an open-source AI workspace running on its global network, giving employees secure access to AI tools and internal systems without requiring new infrastructure. Separately, Cloudflare is developing identity and wallet capabilities for AI agents, potentially creating additional enterprise monetization opportunities. Cloudflare OS Is the First AI Workspace Built Around How Companies Actually Work
• Positive Sentiment: Jefferies expects revenue acceleration and possible guidance increases. Analysts are looking for second-quarter revenue growth near 30% and a path toward mid-30% growth by the end of 2026. A stronger outlook could support the stock, particularly because Cloudflare previously exceeded revenue and adjusted EPS expectations. Cloudflare Poised for Second Quarter Revenue Acceleration, Says Jefferies
• Neutral Sentiment: Earnings are the immediate catalyst. Investors will focus on revenue growth, margins, free cash flow, AI-related demand, and full-year guidance. Cloudflare’s prior quarter included 33.5% year-over-year revenue growth and an EPS beat.
• Neutral Sentiment: A director’s stock sale has limited signaling value. Mark Hawkins sold 133 shares worth approximately $36,939 under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 plan, reducing his holdings by 1.24% while retaining 10,632 shares. SEC Insider Filing
• Negative Sentiment: Valuation leaves little room for disappointment. Cloudflare trades at exceptionally high sales and earnings multiples, so even a quarterly beat may not satisfy investors unless growth, profitability, or guidance materially exceeds already elevated expectations. Three Things I Love About Cloudflare and Why I’m Stuck at Hold Anyway

Analysts Set New Price Targets

NET has been the topic of several recent research reports. Mizuho lifted their price objective on shares of Cloudflare from $260.00 to $310.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 15th. Guggenheim reissued a “sell” rating and issued a $140.00 price objective on shares of Cloudflare in a research note on Wednesday, June 10th. Scotiabank upgraded shares of Cloudflare from a “sector perform” rating to a “sector outperform” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $225.00 to $300.00 in a research report on Tuesday, July 7th. The Goldman Sachs Group cut Cloudflare from a “buy” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 15th. Finally, Susquehanna boosted their target price on shares of Cloudflare from $190.00 to $200.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, May 11th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-one have given a Buy rating, six have given a Hold rating and four have assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $265.27.

Cloudflare Trading Down 3.2%

The company has a market capitalization of $103.11 billion, a P/E ratio of -1,166.83, a P/E/G ratio of 225.36 and a beta of 1.65. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $254.72 and a 200 day simple moving average of $217.56. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.29, a quick ratio of 1.96 and a current ratio of 1.96.

Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 7th. The company reported $0.25 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.23 by $0.02. Cloudflare had a negative net margin of 3.72% and a negative return on equity of 5.65%. The firm had revenue of $639.75 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $620.83 million. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $0.16 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 33.5% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts expect that Cloudflare, Inc. will post 0.03 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Cloudflare

In other Cloudflare news, CEO Matthew Prince sold 52,422 shares of Cloudflare stock in a transaction on Wednesday, July 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $249.09, for a total transaction of $13,057,795.98. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, insider Michelle Zatlyn sold 35,080 shares of Cloudflare stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $213.98, for a total transaction of $7,506,418.40. Following the sale, the insider owned 47,425 shares in the company, valued at approximately $10,148,001.50. This trade represents a 42.52% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 689,532 shares of company stock valued at $165,956,228. 10.66% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Cloudflare

Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in NET. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Cloudflare by 0.3% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 32,407,646 shares of the company’s stock worth $6,389,167,000 after purchasing an additional 90,397 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in Cloudflare by 4.2% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 6,018,175 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,184,044,000 after acquiring an additional 241,981 shares during the last quarter. Jennison Associates LLC increased its position in Cloudflare by 135.8% in the first quarter. Jennison Associates LLC now owns 4,394,484 shares of the company’s stock worth $906,758,000 after purchasing an additional 2,530,872 shares during the period. First Trust Advisors LP raised its stake in shares of Cloudflare by 1.6% during the fourth quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 4,019,157 shares of the company’s stock worth $792,377,000 after buying an additional 63,198 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Invesco Ltd. raised its position in shares of Cloudflare by 1.3% during the 3rd quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 3,964,733 shares of the company’s stock valued at $850,792,000 after acquiring an additional 49,485 shares during the last quarter. 82.68% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

About Cloudflare

Cloudflare, Inc is a global web infrastructure and security company that provides a suite of services designed to improve the performance, reliability and security of internet properties. Its core offerings include a content delivery network (CDN), distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) protection, managed DNS, and a web application firewall (WAF). Cloudflare also provides tools for bot management, SSL/TLS, load balancing and rate limiting to help organizations maintain uptime and protect web applications from attack.

In addition to traditional edge and security services, Cloudflare has expanded into edge computing and developer platforms.