Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) Upgraded to “Buy” at Bank of America

Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) was upgraded by equities researchers at Bank of America from an “underperform” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report issued to clients and investors on Tuesday, Marketbeat Ratings reports. The firm presently has a $160.00 price objective on the stock. Bank of America‘s price objective would indicate a potential upside of 28.81% from the company’s previous close.

Other analysts have also issued reports about the stock. Citigroup upgraded shares of Cloudflare from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $95.00 to $145.00 in a report on Friday, January 17th. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price target on shares of Cloudflare from $136.00 to $175.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, February 7th. Susquehanna upped their target price on Cloudflare from $95.00 to $170.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, February 10th. Mizuho reduced their target price on shares of Cloudflare from $160.00 to $140.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, March 13th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on Cloudflare from $110.00 to $115.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, February 7th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have given a hold rating and thirteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $135.64.

Cloudflare Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE NET opened at $124.22 on Tuesday. The stock has a market cap of $42.86 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -564.61 and a beta of 1.27. The company has a current ratio of 3.37, a quick ratio of 3.37 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.32. Cloudflare has a 1-year low of $66.24 and a 1-year high of $177.37. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $137.01 and its 200 day moving average is $110.56.

Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) last released its earnings results on Thursday, February 6th. The company reported ($0.03) earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.18 by ($0.21). Cloudflare had a negative net margin of 4.72% and a negative return on equity of 5.52%. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Cloudflare will post -0.11 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Cloudflare news, CEO Matthew Prince sold 52,384 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, January 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $113.73, for a total value of $5,957,632.32. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 10,762 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,223,962.26. This trade represents a 82.96 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Thomas J. Seifert sold 15,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, January 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $113.81, for a total transaction of $1,707,150.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 252,869 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $28,779,020.89. The trade was a 5.60 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 566,766 shares of company stock valued at $73,779,200. Insiders own 12.83% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Empowered Funds LLC increased its stake in Cloudflare by 7.7% in the 3rd quarter. Empowered Funds LLC now owns 4,378 shares of the company’s stock worth $354,000 after buying an additional 313 shares in the last quarter. Quest Partners LLC purchased a new position in Cloudflare in the third quarter worth about $54,000. Pathstone Holdings LLC raised its position in Cloudflare by 5.2% during the third quarter. Pathstone Holdings LLC now owns 24,101 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,950,000 after purchasing an additional 1,200 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Cloudflare by 2.7% in the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 1,157,815 shares of the company’s stock valued at $93,656,000 after purchasing an additional 29,960 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Cerity Partners LLC increased its position in shares of Cloudflare by 306.4% during the 3rd quarter. Cerity Partners LLC now owns 18,416 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,490,000 after purchasing an additional 13,885 shares during the last quarter. 82.68% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About Cloudflare

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.