Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) Hits New 1-Year High – Should You Buy?

Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE) reached a new 52-week high during trading on Tuesday . The stock traded as high as $10.95 and last traded at $10.5740, with a volume of 11095188 shares changing hands. The stock had previously closed at $8.12.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities research analysts have issued reports on the stock. Weiss Ratings downgraded shares of Backblaze from a “sell (d-)” rating to a “sell (e+)” rating in a research note on Friday, May 15th. Citizens Jmp restated a “market outperform” rating and set a $8.00 target price on shares of Backblaze in a report on Tuesday, May 5th. Lake Street Capital upped their price target on shares of Backblaze from $8.00 to $11.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, May 5th. Oppenheimer lowered their price target on Backblaze from $9.50 to $8.50 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, February 24th. Finally, Loop Capital set a $8.00 price objective on Backblaze in a research report on Tuesday, February 24th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, six have given a Buy rating, one has given a Hold rating and two have given a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $8.00.

Backblaze Price Performance

The company has a market cap of $592.65 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -25.28 and a beta of 1.71. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $6.63 and its 200-day simple moving average is $5.13. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.28, a current ratio of 1.05 and a quick ratio of 1.05.

Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) last posted its earnings results on Monday, May 4th. The company reported $0.04 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.02 by $0.02. The business had revenue of $38.67 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $37.78 million. Backblaze had a negative net margin of 14.97% and a negative return on equity of 20.54%. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Backblaze, Inc. will post -0.33 EPS for the current year.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Backblaze

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in BLZE. Renaissance Technologies LLC grew its stake in shares of Backblaze by 44.6% during the first quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC now owns 1,172,657 shares of the company’s stock valued at $4,046,000 after acquiring an additional 361,905 shares in the last quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership lifted its stake in shares of Backblaze by 56.0% in the first quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 300,504 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,037,000 after acquiring an additional 107,876 shares in the last quarter. Sei Investments Co. purchased a new position in Backblaze in the first quarter valued at about $60,000. State of Wyoming boosted its holdings in Backblaze by 17.8% in the first quarter. State of Wyoming now owns 30,980 shares of the company’s stock valued at $107,000 after purchasing an additional 4,679 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its stake 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 purchasing an additional 312,459 shares in the last quarter. 54.03% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.