Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE) Sees Large Decrease in Short Interest

Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE) saw a large decrease in short interest in the month of August. As of August 14th, there was short interest totaling 1,787,453 shares, a decrease of 33.7% from the July 30th total of 2,694,870 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 4,057,580 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 0.4 days. Currently, 3.0% of the company’s shares are short sold.

Backblaze Stock Performance

Shares of Backblaze stock opened at $13.20 on Thursday. The company has a current ratio of 1.00, a quick ratio of 1.00 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $15.63 and its 200-day moving average price is $9.07. The firm has a market cap of $817.08 million, a P/E ratio of -38.82 and a beta of 1.56. Backblaze has a 12 month low of $3.26 and a 12 month high of $23.99.

Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) last released its quarterly earnings data on Monday, August 3rd. The company reported $0.08 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.02 by $0.06. Backblaze had a negative net margin of 13.07% and a negative return on equity of 16.73%. The company had revenue of $42.71 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $39.94 million. On average, equities research analysts expect that Backblaze will post -0.26 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Backblaze news, CEO Gleb Budman sold 12,855 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, August 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $15.82, for a total transaction of $203,366.10. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 2,192,103 shares in the company, valued at $34,679,069.46. The trade was a 0.58% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. Also, CFO Marc Suidan sold 2,110 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, August 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $15.82, for a total transaction of $33,380.20. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer directly owned 349,518 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,529,374.76. This represents a 0.60% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. 4.20% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Backblaze

Several hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of BLZE. Wasatch Advisors LP purchased a new position in Backblaze during the third quarter valued at approximately $17,021,000. Pillsbury Lake Capital LLC purchased a new stake in Backblaze during the fourth quarter worth $8,058,000. AWM Investment Company Inc. purchased a new stake in Backblaze during the second quarter worth $22,207,000. Renaissance Technologies LLC lifted its holdings in Backblaze by 94.5% during the fourth quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC now owns 810,752 shares of the company’s stock worth $3,778,000 after buying an additional 393,936 shares during the period. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its position in Backblaze by 152.3% during the 1st quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 517,586 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,785,000 after acquiring an additional 312,459 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 54.03% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts recently commented on BLZE shares. Needham & Company LLC upped their price target on shares of Backblaze from $14.00 to $23.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 4th. William Blair raised shares of Backblaze from an “underperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, June 23rd. Wall Street Zen upgraded Backblaze from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday, August 8th. Lake Street Capital reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $21.00 target price on shares of Backblaze in a research note on Tuesday, August 4th. Finally, Citizens Jmp increased their price target on Backblaze from $16.00 to $21.00 and gave the stock a “market outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 4th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has issued a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Backblaze currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $19.71.

About Backblaze

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.