Marc Suidan Sells 2,110 Shares of Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) Stock

Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE) CFO Marc Suidan sold 2,110 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, August 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $15.82, for a total transaction of $33,380.20. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer directly owned 349,518 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,529,374.76. This represents a 0.60% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards.

Backblaze Price Performance

BLZE opened at $15.28 on Wednesday. The company has a market capitalization of $945.83 million, a P/E ratio of -44.94 and a beta of 1.56. The company has a 50-day moving average of $15.05 and a 200-day moving average of $8.64. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34, a quick ratio of 1.00 and a current ratio of 1.00. Backblaze, Inc. has a 1-year low of $3.26 and a 1-year high of $23.99.

Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Monday, August 3rd. The company reported $0.08 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.02 by $0.06. The business had revenue of $42.71 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $39.94 million. Backblaze had a negative net margin of 13.07% and a negative return on equity of 16.73%. Equities analysts expect that Backblaze, Inc. will post -0.26 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its position in shares of Backblaze by 152.3% in the 1st quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 517,586 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,785,000 after purchasing an additional 312,459 shares during the period. Renaissance Technologies LLC increased its position in shares of Backblaze by 44.6% in the first quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC now owns 1,172,657 shares of the company’s stock worth $4,046,000 after acquiring an additional 361,905 shares in the last quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership raised its holdings in shares of Backblaze by 56.0% during the first quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 300,504 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,037,000 after acquiring an additional 107,876 shares during the period. Baader Bank Aktiengesellschaft purchased a new stake in shares of Backblaze in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $699,000. Finally, GSA Capital Partners LLP grew its position in Backblaze by 159.7% during the 4th quarter. GSA Capital Partners LLP now owns 299,218 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,394,000 after purchasing an additional 184,015 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 54.03% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several analysts have weighed in on BLZE shares. Citigroup reiterated a “market outperform” rating on shares of Backblaze in a research note on Thursday, July 23rd. Needham & Company LLC upped their price target on shares of Backblaze from $14.00 to $23.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 4th. Craig Hallum raised Backblaze from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price target for the company from $6.50 to $16.00 in a report on Tuesday, June 23rd. Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Backblaze from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday, August 8th. Finally, Citizens Jmp increased their price target on Backblaze from $16.00 to $21.00 and gave the company a “market outperform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 4th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $19.71.

Backblaze Company Profile

Backblaze, Inc, a storage cloud platform, provides businesses and consumers cloud services to store, use, and protect data in the United States and internationally. The company offers cloud services through a web-scale software infrastructure built on commodity hardware. It also provides Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage, which enables customers to store data, developers to build applications, and partners to expand their use cases. This service is offered as a consumption-based Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and serves use cases, such as public, hybrid, and multi-cloud data storage; application development and DevOps; content delivery and edge computing; security and ransomware protection; media management; backup, archive, and tape replacement; repository for analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning; and Internet of Things.