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Cloudflare (NET) · Cloud Infrastructure · 25 May 2026
Price narrative

Cloudflare — From the 2024 Lows to Today

The narrative arc of Cloudflare's recovery from its 2024 lows, annotated with the catalysts along the way.

Cloudflare (NET) — From the 2024 Lows to Today

PRICE JOURNEY • WHAT CAUSED EACH INFLECTION • WHAT'S NEXT
The arc in one sentence: Cloudflare went from $80 in August 2024 to a $256.79 all-time high on May 7, 2026 — a 3.2x return in 21 months — driven by three sequential narrative re-rates: (1) the sales productivity inflection late 2024, (2) the Workers AI / $130M deal validation in Q1 2025, and (3) the agentic-traffic monetization story that emerged through 2025. The recent 24% pullback after Q1'26 is a reaction to a 20% workforce reduction announcement — operationally orthogonal to the underlying business inflection.
Aug 2024 Low
~$80
starting point
May 7, 2026 ATH
$256.79
+220% from low
Current Price
$196
-24% from ATH
21-Month Return
~145%
vs SPX ~28%

Price Path — Aug 2024 to May 2026 monthly close, with inflection annotations

$260 $215 $170 $125 $80 Aug'24 Nov'24 Feb'25 May'25 Aug'25 Nov'25 Feb'26 May'26
FIG. 005-A
What Caused Each Inflection — The Catalysts in Sequence
AUG 2024 ~$80 — 52w low
The pre-inflection setup
Stock was punished through 2024 on (a) the broader software de-rating after the 2023 ZIRP-era multiples collapsed, (b) collapsing sales productivity — Morningstar called it the "sales reps were not as productive as the firm would've liked" period, and (c) DBNR slipping from peak 125% to 110% trough in Q3'24. The market had concluded Cloudflare was a slowing-growth, overvalued story.
NOV 7, 2024 ① $85 → $103 (+20%)
Q3'24 print — the GTM inflection
Q3'24 revenue $430M, +28%, beat. The watershed moment was Matthew Prince explicitly calling out "a key inflection point in the transformation of our go-to-market organization". Cloudflare had replaced under-performing sales reps, reorganized into verticals, and net-new ACV growth turned. The market re-rated growth durability.
FEB 6, 2025 ② $155 → $170 (+10% premkt)
Q4'24 print — beat, raise, $1M+ customers explode
Revenue $459.9M (+27%), beat by $8M. The number that mattered: $1M+ customers grew 47% YoY to 173, with more than half the 55 net adds in Q4 alone. Stock broke out to 3-year highs. Sentiment shift: this is no longer a "growth deceleration" story; it's a "growth durability + enterprise penetration" story.
MAY 8, 2025 ③ $115 → $135 (post-print run)
The $130M Workers deal — Workers re-rates from toy to platform
Q1'25 revenue $479M, +27%. The disclosure that re-rated the entire developer-services thesis: a 5-year, $130M contract — the largest in Cloudflare's history — primarily for Workers, won from a "leading technology company that switched from a traditional hyperscaler". This was the validation moment: Workers can scale to nine-figure deals. Stock doubled over the next 60 days.
JUL 31, 2025 ~$200
Q2'25 — revenue re-accelerates, $2B annualized crossed
Revenue $512M, +28% (re-accel from 27%). DBNR climbed to 114% from 111% in Q1'25. Pool-of-funds deal structure went from <3% of new ACV (Q3'24) to low-double-digit revenue share. The buy-side narrative crystallized: "deceleration story is dead, this is a re-acceleration".
OCT 30, 2025 ④ ~$215 → $230
Q3'25 — revenue accelerates to 31%, $3B run-rate target
Revenue $562M, +31% YoY — second consecutive quarter of acceleration. RPO grew 43%. Management implied a $3B revenue run-rate exiting 2026. Needham raised PT to $285 from $240, KeyBanc to $300 from $235. This was the print where sell-side capitulated bearish.
FEB 4, 2026 ⑤ $170 → $185
BTIG upgrade Neutral → Buy; trough buying
January saw a broader cybersecurity sector sell-off (China policy headlines, software-stack consolidation fears). NET pulled back to $170. BTIG upgraded to Buy citing valuation reset, and Q4'25 beat (announced Feb 12) with 34% revenue growth ($614.5M). Stock rallied 50% over next 3 months.
MAY 7, 2026 ⑥ $256.79 ATH
All-time high at 28x EV/NTM sales
Going into Q1'26 print, the stock was priced for perfection. Options market was pricing an 11.3% straddle implied move. Multiple at 28x EV/Sales (peer mean ~3.7x).
MAY 8, 2026 ⑦ $256 → $194 (-24%)
The 20% layoff reaction
Q1'26 print was operationally excellent: revenue $639.8M, +34% YoY (3rd consecutive quarter of acceleration), beat by $17M. BUT — simultaneously announced 20% workforce reduction (1,100 FTEs), $140-150M restructuring charges, gross margin compression to 72.8% (-430bps YoY). Market panic-sold the layoff regardless of the print quality. Down ~24% in two days.
Forward Catalysts — What Continues / Breaks the Rally
Near-term (0–6 months)
  • +Q2'26 earnings (late Jul'26) — first clean print post-restructuring. Watch: revenue beat >$667M (above $664-665M guide), gross-margin stabilization, restructuring charges in-line.
  • +Cloudflare Connect events (Jul/Sep/Nov'26) — historically drive +5-8% multi-day moves on Workers / Zero Trust / Agentic platform announcements.
  • ±September FOMC — long-duration software re-rates favorably on a cut; compresses on a hold.
  • +Q3'26 earnings (late Oct'26) — first quarter showing the AI-first operating-model productivity uplift. The "did the layoff work" reveal.
Medium-term (6–18 months)
  • +FY27 guidance (Feb'27) — first guide capturing post-restructuring operating model. Mgmt flagged "north of 50% Rule of 40". A guide above that = bull case validation.
  • ±Workers AI revenue disclosure — mgmt resisting segment disclosure; an AI-revenue breakout (à la Azure AI) would be a re-rating event.
  • +Pay-per-crawl at scale — microtransaction layer for AI bots ramps through FY27 H2. The high-margin secret weapon.
  • ±Hyperscaler partnership / displacement event — AWS or Azure naming Cloudflare as preferred edge partner = positive; named loss = negative.
Long-term (18+ months)
  • +Agent traffic > human crossover (~2027) — mgmt's own forecast. Validates the entire bull thesis. Consistent with Aschenbrenner's situational-awareness timeline on agentic capability.
  • +Rule of 50+ structurally achieved — operating leverage thesis fully expressed. ~22% FCF margin baseline.
  • +Buyback initiation — with $4.16B cash post-restructuring and growing FCF, buyback authorization plausible by 2027-2028.
  • Multiple compression risk — even unchanged earnings, if EV/Sales compresses from 22x to 15x, that's ~30% drawdown without operational mistake.

Thesis-Break Triggers things that turn the rally over

The single most under-appreciated framing: the 2024-2026 rally was NOT primarily about Workers AI hype — it was about three sequential business-fundamentals upgrades: GTM productivity inflection (Nov'24) → enterprise penetration validation (Feb'25) → revenue re-acceleration (Jul-Oct'25). Workers AI was the icing, not the cake. This matters because if you believe the rally is just an AI-narrative trade, you're missing the durable operational story underneath.

Sources: Cloudflare 8-Ks Aug'24-May'26, Q1'24-Q1'26 earnings transcripts, Morningstar analyst commentary (Mar'25), Stocktwits Q4'24 reaction, BTIG Feb 4, 2026 upgrade (Nasdaq), Needham/KeyBanc Q3'25 PT raises (TipRanks/TheFly). Price points are monthly close approximations from MacroTrends, Capital.com, and Investing.com cross-reference.