Cloudflare Sees Unusually Large Options Volume (NYSE:NET)

Cloudflare, Inc. (NYSE:NET) was the target of unusually large options trading on Wednesday. Stock traders bought 21,646 call options on the stock. This is an increase of 46% compared to the typical daily volume of 14,788 call options.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts have recently weighed in on the company. BNP Paribas began coverage on Cloudflare in a report on Tuesday, October 8th. They set an “underperform” rating and a $65.00 price target on the stock. UBS Group increased their target price on Cloudflare from $88.00 to $95.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, November 8th. Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of Cloudflare from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their price target for the stock from $92.00 to $130.00 in a research report on Monday. Piper Sandler lifted their price objective on shares of Cloudflare from $83.00 to $92.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, November 8th. Finally, Scotiabank raised their price objective on Cloudflare from $85.00 to $87.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Friday, November 8th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have assigned a hold rating and eleven have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $94.40.

Cloudflare Price Performance

Shares of NET traded up $5.01 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $109.92. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 1,883,446 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,163,093. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $91.03 and a 200 day moving average price of $82.94. The stock has a market capitalization of $37.72 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -403.42 and a beta of 1.10. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.32, a current ratio of 3.37 and a quick ratio of 3.37. Cloudflare has a fifty-two week low of $66.24 and a fifty-two week high of $116.00.

Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) last released its earnings results on Thursday, November 7th. The company reported ($0.03) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, meeting analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.03). Cloudflare had a negative return on equity of 7.18% and a negative net margin of 5.97%. The company had revenue of $430.08 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $423.65 million. On average, research analysts predict that Cloudflare will post -0.11 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CEO Matthew Prince sold 52,384 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, September 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $76.55, for a total transaction of $4,009,995.20. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 10,761 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $823,754.55. This trade represents a 82.96 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, COO Michelle Zatlyn sold 25,640 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, November 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $100.44, for a total transaction of $2,575,281.60. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer now owns 172,959 shares in the company, valued at $17,372,001.96. This represents a 12.91 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 536,568 shares of company stock valued at $47,573,767. 12.83% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Cloudflare

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of NET. Comerica Bank lifted its position in Cloudflare by 19.9% during the 1st quarter. Comerica Bank now owns 28,556 shares of the company’s stock worth $2,765,000 after acquiring an additional 4,733 shares during the last quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers grew its holdings in shares of Cloudflare by 93.8% in the 1st quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers now owns 86,487 shares of the company’s stock worth $8,374,000 after purchasing an additional 41,871 shares during the last quarter. Thurston Springer Miller Herd & Titak Inc. bought a new position in shares of Cloudflare in the second quarter valued at approximately $29,000. Wealth Management Partners LLC grew its stake in shares of Cloudflare by 5.4% during the second quarter. Wealth Management Partners LLC now owns 3,637 shares of the company’s stock valued at $301,000 after purchasing an additional 185 shares during the last quarter. Finally, RFG Advisory LLC raised its position in shares of Cloudflare by 18.7% during the second quarter. RFG Advisory LLC now owns 8,672 shares of the company’s stock worth $718,000 after acquiring an additional 1,366 shares during the last quarter. 82.68% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.