Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) Upgraded to “Strong-Buy” at Zacks Research

Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) was upgraded by research analysts at Zacks Research from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report issued on Monday,Zacks.com reports.

NET has been the topic of a number of other reports. Citizens Jmp boosted their price target on shares of Cloudflare from $270.00 to $330.00 and gave the stock a “market outperform” rating in a research note on Monday. Stifel Nicolaus set a $260.00 target price on shares of Cloudflare in a research note on Friday, May 8th. Benchmark lowered shares of Cloudflare to an “underperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 7th. Cantor Fitzgerald restated a “neutral” rating and issued a $230.00 price target (up from $224.00) on shares of Cloudflare in a research note on Wednesday, June 10th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group lowered Cloudflare from a “buy” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 15th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-two have issued a Buy rating, six have given a Hold rating and four have issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Cloudflare has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $258.59.

Cloudflare Stock Up 0.0%

Shares of NYSE NET opened at $272.50 on Monday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.96, a current ratio of 1.96 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.29. The business’s 50 day moving average is $239.64 and its two-hundred day moving average is $211.05. Cloudflare has a 52-week low of $158.83 and a 52-week high of $291.00. The firm has a market cap of $96.32 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -1,090.02, a PEG ratio of 277.66 and a beta of 1.67.

Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) last issued its quarterly earnings data 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. The business had revenue of $639.75 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $620.83 million. Cloudflare had a negative return on equity of 5.65% and a negative net margin of 3.72%.The company’s revenue was up 33.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.16 earnings per share. Cloudflare has set its FY 2026 guidance at 1.190-1.200 EPS and its Q2 2026 guidance at 0.270-0.270 EPS. Research analysts predict that Cloudflare will post 0.02 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity at Cloudflare

In other news, insider Michelle Zatlyn sold 35,080 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 completion of the sale, the insider owned 47,425 shares in the company, valued at approximately $10,148,001.50. The trade was a 42.52% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Matthew Prince sold 52,422 shares of the company’s 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. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold 564,903 shares of company stock worth $127,356,194 over the last quarter. 10.66% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Cloudflare

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of NET. HM Payson & Co. acquired a new position in Cloudflare in the fourth quarter valued at $25,000. Wiser Advisor Group LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Cloudflare during the third quarter worth about $26,000. Wexford Capital LP acquired a new stake in shares of Cloudflare during the third quarter worth about $30,000. CX Institutional lifted its holdings in shares of Cloudflare by 49.4% in the 2nd quarter. CX Institutional now owns 133 shares of the company’s stock valued at $33,000 after purchasing an additional 44 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. lifted its holdings in shares of Cloudflare by 55.4% in the 3rd quarter. Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. now owns 157 shares of the company’s stock valued at $34,000 after purchasing an additional 56 shares during the last quarter. 82.68% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.