Scotiabank Upgrades Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) to Sector Outperform

Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) was upgraded by equities researchers at Scotiabank from a “sector perform” rating to a “sector outperform” rating in a note issued to investors on Tuesday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage presently has a $300.00 target price on the stock, up from their prior target price of $225.00. Scotiabank’s target price would suggest a potential upside of 21.23% from the stock’s previous close.

NET has been the subject of a number of other research reports. Citizens Jmp reissued a “market outperform” rating and issued a $270.00 price objective on shares of Cloudflare in a research note on Monday, June 15th. Morgan Stanley reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and issued a $305.00 price objective on shares of Cloudflare in a research report on Thursday, June 4th. Needham & Company LLC boosted their price target on shares of Cloudflare from $250.00 to $280.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, June 10th. Guggenheim reiterated a “sell” rating and issued a $140.00 price objective on shares of Cloudflare in a research note on Wednesday, June 10th. Finally, Susquehanna increased 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. Twenty-two analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have assigned a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $244.23.

Cloudflare Stock Performance

NYSE NET opened at $247.46 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.29, a current ratio of 1.96 and a quick ratio of 1.96. The business’s fifty day moving average is $226.93 and its 200 day moving average is $205.29. Cloudflare has a twelve month low of $158.83 and a twelve month high of $276.82.

Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) last posted 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. Cloudflare had a negative return on equity of 5.65% and a negative net margin of 3.72%.The business 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 business posted $0.16 earnings per share. Cloudflare’s quarterly revenue was up 33.5% on a year-over-year basis. Cloudflare has set its FY 2026 guidance at 1.190-1.200 EPS and its Q2 2026 guidance at 0.270-0.270 EPS. Equities analysts predict that Cloudflare will post 0.02 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Cloudflare

In other Cloudflare news, CEO Matthew Prince sold 52,383 shares of Cloudflare stock in a transaction dated Monday, July 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $247.28, for a total value of $12,953,268.24. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, insider Michelle Zatlyn sold 25,641 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, June 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $219.11, for a total value of $5,618,199.51. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 47,425 shares in the company, valued at approximately $10,391,291.75. The trade was a 35.09% decrease in their ownership of the stock. 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 671,049 shares of company stock valued at $149,042,468 in the last three months. Company insiders own 10.66% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. HM Payson & Co. purchased a new position in shares of Cloudflare during the 4th quarter valued at about $25,000. Wiser Advisor Group LLC purchased a new position in shares of Cloudflare during the third quarter valued at about $26,000. Wexford Capital LP bought a new stake in Cloudflare in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $30,000. Ameriflex Group Inc. increased its position in Cloudflare by 105.6% in the third quarter. Ameriflex Group Inc. now owns 148 shares of the company’s stock worth $32,000 after purchasing an additional 76 shares during the last quarter. Finally, CX Institutional increased its holdings in shares of Cloudflare by 49.4% in the 2nd quarter. CX Institutional now owns 133 shares of the company’s stock worth $33,000 after buying an additional 44 shares during the last quarter. 82.68% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Cloudflare Company Profile

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.