Artisan Partners Limited Partnership Trims Stake in Cloudflare, Inc. $NET

Artisan Partners Limited Partnership cut its position in Cloudflare, Inc. (NYSE:NET) by 7.5% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 715,058 shares of the company’s stock after selling 58,134 shares during the quarter. Artisan Partners Limited Partnership owned approximately 0.20% of Cloudflare worth $153,444,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in NET. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Cloudflare by 2.6% in the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 32,317,249 shares of the company’s stock valued at $6,934,958,000 after acquiring an additional 821,684 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its position in Cloudflare by 5.1% in the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 5,536,679 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,081,533,000 after purchasing an additional 270,227 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Cloudflare during the 2nd quarter worth $541,462,000. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its position in Cloudflare by 3.6% during the 2nd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 1,368,906 shares of the company’s stock worth $268,073,000 after purchasing an additional 47,698 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA increased its stake in Cloudflare by 96.3% in the third quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 1,302,893 shares of the company’s stock valued at $279,588,000 after purchasing an additional 639,245 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.68% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages have recently weighed in on NET. KeyCorp reiterated an “overweight” rating on shares of Cloudflare in a research note on Wednesday, February 11th. Citizens Jmp set a $270.00 price objective on Cloudflare in a research report on Friday, October 31st. Wolfe Research reiterated a “peer perform” rating on shares of Cloudflare in a research note on Monday, January 26th. Oppenheimer started coverage on Cloudflare in a research note on Monday, November 10th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $260.00 price target for the company. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price objective on shares of Cloudflare from $265.00 to $270.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 11th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nineteen have assigned a Buy rating, seven have issued a Hold rating and three have issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $230.70.

Cloudflare Trading Up 1.6%

NYSE:NET opened at $174.59 on Friday. Cloudflare, Inc. has a 52-week low of $89.42 and a 52-week high of $260.00. The company has a quick ratio of 2.04, a current ratio of 2.04 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.46. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $186.33 and a 200-day simple moving average of $203.14. The company has a market capitalization of $61.16 billion, a PE ratio of -602.01 and a beta of 1.97.

Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, February 10th. The company reported $0.28 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.27 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $614.51 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $591.67 million. Cloudflare had a negative net margin of 4.72% and a negative return on equity of 7.40%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 33.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the firm posted $0.19 EPS. On average, equities research analysts expect that Cloudflare, Inc. will post -0.11 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Cloudflare

In other Cloudflare news, insider Michelle Zatlyn sold 35,080 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $187.39, for a total transaction of $6,573,641.20. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 34,514 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $6,467,578.46. This trade represents a 50.41% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CFO Thomas J. Seifert sold 41,557 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, February 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $185.04, for a total value of $7,689,707.28. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer owned 85,452 shares in the company, valued at $15,812,038.08. This represents a 32.72% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders sold a total of 610,780 shares of company stock valued at $115,913,967 in the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 10.89% of the company’s stock.

Cloudflare 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.