Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE) Short Interest Down 34.4% in January

Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE) was the recipient of a significant drop in short interest during the month of January. As of January 31st, there was short interest totalling 508,800 shares, a drop of 34.4% from the January 15th total of 776,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 394,300 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 1.3 days. Approximately 1.4% of the company’s shares are short sold.

Backblaze Stock Down 3.1 %

Shares of BLZE stock traded down $0.23 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $7.25. 269,967 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 207,993. Backblaze has a 12 month low of $4.91 and a 12 month high of $12.65. The company has a market cap of $321.90 million, a P/E ratio of -6.53 and a beta of 0.92. The company has a quick ratio of 0.54, a current ratio of 0.54 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.39. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $6.48 and its 200-day moving average price is $6.49.

Insider Transactions at Backblaze

In related news, CEO Gleb Budman sold 10,321 shares of Backblaze stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $6.42, for a total value of $66,260.82. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 1,864,646 shares in the company, valued at $11,971,027.32. The trade was a 0.55 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, VP Tina Cessna sold 8,874 shares of Backblaze stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $6.42, for a total transaction of $56,971.08. Following the completion of the sale, the vice president now owns 144,566 shares in the company, valued at approximately $928,113.72. This trade represents a 5.78 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Company insiders own 5.20% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Backblaze

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. Manatuck Hill Partners LLC purchased a new position in shares of Backblaze in the 4th quarter worth about $903,000. Jane Street Group LLC raised its position in shares of Backblaze by 106.8% in the 4th quarter. Jane Street Group LLC now owns 51,500 shares of the company’s stock worth $310,000 after purchasing an additional 26,593 shares during the last quarter. PDT Partners LLC raised its position in shares of Backblaze by 301.9% in the 4th quarter. PDT Partners LLC now owns 43,160 shares of the company’s stock worth $260,000 after purchasing an additional 32,422 shares during the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp raised its position in shares of Backblaze by 21.5% in the 4th quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 380,538 shares of the company’s stock worth $2,291,000 after purchasing an additional 67,281 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Boothbay Fund Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Backblaze in the 4th quarter worth about $102,000. Institutional investors own 54.03% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Raymond James lifted their price target on shares of Backblaze from $13.00 to $14.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, November 8th. Craig Hallum boosted their target price on shares of Backblaze from $10.00 to $11.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, October 21st.

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.