Cloudflare Inc (NYSE:NET) shares are trading higher Wednesday after Piper Sandler upgraded the stock to Overweight.
- Cloudflare stock is surging to new heights today. What’s behind NET gains?
Piper Sandler analyst James Fish raised his rating on Cloudflare from Neutral to Overweight while maintaining a $222 price target. Fish said Cloudflare stands to benefit from rising demand for cloud computing services as artificial intelligence adoption expands, calling the company one of his "favorite long‑term stories,” CNBC reported.
He noted that Cloudflare shares have fallen more than 9% in 2026, making the current valuation more appealing. The analyst described the pullback as a "window to get involved."
Analyst Sees Cloudflare As An AI‑Infrastructure Winner
According to Fish, Cloudflare is positioned to capture new business through its pay‑as‑you‑go offerings including network‑as‑a‑service (NaaS), SASE and IaaS, which help customers access and store data at lower cost.
Despite pressure on software stocks this year and investor concerns that AI could disrupt parts of the industry, Piper Sandler argues that Cloudflare is likely to benefit from the AI boom. The firm highlighted Cloudflare's existing relationship with OpenAI and its role as a core provider for Anthropic's back‑end.
Fish said Cloudflare and its edge‑computing peers "should be AI‑infrastructure winners," citing a multiple drivers, that being workers and IaaS hosting AI applications, increased caching and website traffic tied to AI workloads and network and application security demand.
Cooling Off, Not Capitulating
Technically, Cloudflare is still in the digestion phase. It's sitting in the middle of its 52-week range ($100.25 to $260.00), which reads more like consolidation after a strong run than a clean breakout setup. The stock is trading 8.6% below its 20-day simple moving average (SMA) and 2.9% below its 100-day SMA— short-term momentum has cooled, but the intermediate trend is trying to find its footing.
The moving averages are sending mixed signals. The 20-day SMA is above the 50-day SMA, a near-term bullish tilt, but the death cross from February (50-day SMA below the 200-day SMA) keeps a longer-term caution flag planted on the chart. Add in MACD sitting below its signal line with a negative histogram, and you get a market that's still giving sellers a slight edge — at least until buyers prove they can sustain follow-through.
Key levels are doing the heavy lifting here: $225.00 is the resistance zone where rallies have recently struggled, while $159.00 is the support level where buyers have tended to show up and slow declines. And despite the recent reset, the longer-term trend still has teeth — over the past 12 months, the stock is up 72.51%.
Traders are watching whether the stock can reclaim key averages and keep the higher-low structure intact after February's swing low and March's swing high.
What Do Analysts Have To Say?
On the Street, the stock carries a Buy Rating with an average price target of $243.89. Recent actions show analysts adjusting around the same core view:
- Piper Sandler upgraded to Overweight (Maintains Target to $222.00) (April 15)
- Mizuho kept Outperform while lowering its target to $235.00 (April 14)
- Citigroup reiterated Buy while raising its target to $265.00 (Feb. 12)
In other words, the debate isn't whether Cloudflare is relevant, but instead how much of that relevance is already priced in.
The Benzinga Edge Scorecard Sees A Market Waiting For Proof
On the Benzinga Edge scorecard, the message is less "all-clear" and more "show me." Momentum is Neutral (Score: 59.21), reflecting a trend profile where neither bulls nor bears have fully seized control. That fits the chart: a stock trying to rebuild after a pullback, with $225.00 overhead and $159.00 underneath.
NET Price Action: Cloudflare shares were up 5.91% at $189.20 at the time of publication on Wednesday, according to Benzinga Pro.
Image: Piotr Swat/Shutterstock
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