Loop starts Cloudflare with Hold on slowdown in IT spending

Loop Capital analyst Fahad Najam initiated coverage of Cloudflare with a Hold rating and $52 price target. The analyst calls Cloudflare "one of the most interesting companies" within the firm’s coverage universe. The company is a disruptor in several end markets across networking, security, and public cloud that today represent a total addressable market of at least $115B, the analyst tells investors in a research note. However, Loop’s recent checks highlight a broader slowdown in IT spending across end markets and geographies, especially in new digital IT transformation projects and cloud projects, which it believes present incremental risks to Cloudflare’s growth outlook over the next 6 – 12 months.