Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. Cuts Stake in Cloudflare, Inc. $NET

Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. reduced its holdings in shares of Cloudflare, Inc. (NYSE:NET) by 4.5% during the first quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 1,074,397 shares of the company’s stock after selling 51,205 shares during the period. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. owned about 0.31% of Cloudflare worth $221,691,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Empowered Funds LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Cloudflare by 34.2% in the 1st quarter. Empowered Funds LLC now owns 6,656 shares of the company’s stock worth $750,000 after acquiring an additional 1,696 shares during the last quarter. Sivia Capital Partners LLC bought a new position in shares of Cloudflare during the 2nd quarter valued at $424,000. Cerity Partners LLC raised its position in Cloudflare by 30.1% in the 2nd quarter. Cerity Partners LLC now owns 27,531 shares of the company’s stock worth $5,391,000 after purchasing an additional 6,363 shares during the period. Sei Investments Co. raised its position in Cloudflare by 40.1% in the 2nd quarter. Sei Investments Co. now owns 329,036 shares of the company’s stock worth $64,432,000 after purchasing an additional 94,112 shares during the period. Finally, The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company raised its position in Cloudflare by 14.6% in the 2nd quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 16,461 shares of the company’s stock worth $3,224,000 after purchasing an additional 2,093 shares during the period. 82.68% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Cloudflare News Summary

Here are the key news stories impacting Cloudflare this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Scotiabank upgraded Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) to Sector Outperform and lifted its target to $300, citing stronger growth prospects from AI, edge computing, and zero-trust security. Scotiabank Sees a New Growth Story for Cloudflare
• Positive Sentiment: Cloudflare’s partnership with OpenAI on a research pilot for AI search indexing reinforces the company’s AI infrastructure narrative and could support future demand. Cloudflare, OpenAI team up to launch research pilot for AI search indexing
• Positive Sentiment: Recent coverage highlighted Cloudflare’s rally as investors increasingly view it as an AI infrastructure beneficiary, which may be helping sentiment and momentum in the shares. Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) Rally Sparks AI Infrastructure Buzz
• Neutral Sentiment: Director Carl Ledbetter sold 5,000 shares under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 plan. The sale is notable, but it does not necessarily signal a change in the company’s outlook. Cloudflare Director Carl Ledbetter Sells 5,000 Shares
• Neutral Sentiment: Cloudflare’s AI crawl/referral data drew attention in a Business Insider piece, but the article is more about industry behavior than a direct fundamental change for NET. Cloudflare’s latest AI rankings expose the web’s biggest free rider

Insider Transactions at Cloudflare

In other news, Director Mark J. Hawkins sold 133 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, July 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $249.00, for a total transaction of $33,117.00. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 10,765 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,680,485. The trade was a 1.22% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, Director Carl Ledbetter sold 5,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, July 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $268.11, for a total value of $1,340,550.00. Following the transaction, the director owned 888,073 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $238,101,252.03. This represents a 0.56% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. In the last quarter, insiders sold 626,185 shares of company stock worth $139,810,855. Corporate insiders own 10.66% of the company’s stock.

Cloudflare Stock Performance

Cloudflare stock opened at $276.04 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 1.96, a quick ratio of 1.96 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.29. The firm has a market cap of $97.57 billion, a P/E ratio of -1,104.16, a P/E/G ratio of 275.35 and a beta of 1.67. Cloudflare, Inc. has a 1-year low of $158.83 and a 1-year high of $278.88. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $230.76 and a 200-day moving average of $206.97.

Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 7th. The company reported $0.25 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.23 by $0.02. The company had revenue of $639.75 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $620.83 million. Cloudflare had a negative return on equity of 5.65% and a negative net margin of 3.72%.Cloudflare’s revenue was up 33.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $0.16 EPS. Cloudflare has set its FY 2026 guidance at 1.190-1.200 EPS and its Q2 2026 guidance at 0.270-0.270 EPS. Sell-side analysts expect that Cloudflare, Inc. will post 0.02 EPS for the current year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several analysts have issued reports on NET shares. Stifel Nicolaus set a $260.00 price target on shares of Cloudflare in a research report on Friday, May 8th. Susquehanna lifted their price objective on Cloudflare from $190.00 to $200.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, May 11th. Jefferies Financial Group lowered Cloudflare from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday. Zacks Research upgraded Cloudflare from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, March 13th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group lowered Cloudflare from a “buy” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 15th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-one have assigned a Buy rating, eight have given a Hold rating and four have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $244.23.

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.