Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) Upgraded at Wall Street Zen

Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research note published on Saturday,Wall Street Zen reports.

A number of other research firms have also recently weighed in on BLZE. Citizens Jmp upped their price objective on shares of Backblaze from $16.00 to $21.00 and gave the company a “market outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 4th. Weiss Ratings restated a “sell (e+)” rating on shares of Backblaze in a research note on Wednesday, August 12th. Oppenheimer lifted their target price on Backblaze from $15.00 to $25.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 4th. Citigroup reiterated a “market outperform” rating on shares of Backblaze in a research note on Monday, September 14th. Finally, Craig Hallum upgraded Backblaze from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price target for the stock from $6.50 to $16.00 in a research note on Tuesday, June 23rd. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $19.71.

Backblaze Trading Down 0.3%

BLZE opened at $12.65 on Friday. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $15.02 and its 200-day moving average is $10.95. Backblaze has a 52-week low of $3.26 and a 52-week high of $23.99. The company has a quick ratio of 1.00, a current ratio of 1.00 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34. The firm has a market capitalization of $783.03 million, a P/E ratio of -37.20 and a beta of 1.56.

Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) last announced its earnings results on Monday, August 3rd. The company reported $0.08 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.02 by $0.06. The business had revenue of $42.71 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $39.94 million. Backblaze had a negative net margin of 13.07% and a negative return on equity of 16.73%. Analysts expect that Backblaze will post -0.28 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Backblaze

In related news, CFO Marc Suidan sold 2,110 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $15.82, for a total value of $33,380.20. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer directly owned 349,518 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,529,374.76. The trade was a 0.60% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. Also, CEO Gleb Budman sold 12,855 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $15.82, for a total value of $203,366.10. Following the sale, 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 position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. Corporate insiders own 4.20% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Whetstone Capital Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in Backblaze by 4.1% in the fourth quarter. Whetstone Capital Advisors LLC now owns 1,520,055 shares of the company’s stock worth $7,083,000 after purchasing an additional 59,263 shares during the period. AWM Investment Company Inc. bought a new stake in Backblaze during the second quarter valued at $22,207,000. Renaissance Technologies LLC increased its stake in 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 purchasing an additional 361,905 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its holdings in shares of Backblaze by 152.3% during the first quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 517,586 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,785,000 after purchasing an additional 312,459 shares during the period. Finally, Perkins Capital Management Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Backblaze by 21.6% during the first quarter. Perkins Capital Management Inc. now owns 339,025 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,170,000 after purchasing an additional 60,250 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 54.03% of the company’s stock.

Backblaze Company Profile

Backblaze, Inc provides cloud storage and data backup services for businesses, developers, and individual customers. Its platform is designed to help organizations store, protect, manage, and access data without maintaining their own extensive physical storage infrastructure.

The company’s primary offerings include Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage, an object storage service for applications, backup systems, content delivery, and data-intensive workloads, and Backblaze Computer Backup, which automatically backs up data from computers.