Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE) Short Interest Update

Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE) was the recipient of a significant drop in short interest in March. As of March 31st, there was short interest totalling 1,240,000 shares, a drop of 12.7% from the March 15th total of 1,420,000 shares. Currently, 4.7% of the shares of the stock are sold short. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 402,300 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 3.1 days.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts recently issued reports on BLZE shares. Raymond James raised their price objective on shares of Backblaze from $12.00 to $14.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, February 16th. B. Riley raised their price objective on shares of Backblaze from $9.00 to $11.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, February 9th. Finally, Oppenheimer lifted their price target on shares of Backblaze from $7.50 to $11.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, February 16th.

Backblaze Trading Up 0.3 %

Shares of BLZE traded up $0.03 during trading on Tuesday, reaching $9.11. 160,124 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 380,110. Backblaze has a twelve month low of $3.50 and a twelve month high of $12.65. The stock has a market cap of $375.33 million, a PE ratio of -5.52 and a beta of 1.20. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $10.22 and a 200-day simple moving average of $7.96. The company has a quick ratio of 0.67, a current ratio of 0.67 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.39.

Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 15th. The company reported ($0.30) earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.34) by $0.04. The business had revenue of $28.74 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $28.18 million. Backblaze had a negative net margin of 57.70% and a negative return on equity of 105.94%. On average, analysts anticipate that Backblaze will post -1.12 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Transactions at Backblaze

In other news, VP Tina Cessna sold 20,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $9.95, for a total value of $199,000.00. Following the transaction, the vice president now directly owns 121,083 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,204,775.85. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. In other news, VP Tina Cessna sold 20,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $9.95, for a total value of $199,000.00. Following the transaction, the vice president now directly owns 121,083 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,204,775.85. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CFO Francis P. Patchel sold 2,396 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $10.85, for a total transaction of $25,996.60. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 184,165 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,998,190.25. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 81,429 shares of company stock valued at $851,676. Corporate insiders own 5.20% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in BLZE. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in Backblaze by 8.8% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 1,637,064 shares of the company’s stock worth $12,425,000 after acquiring an additional 132,263 shares during the last quarter. Whetstone Capital Advisors LLC lifted its stake in Backblaze by 50.6% in the second quarter. Whetstone Capital Advisors LLC now owns 1,600,789 shares of the company’s stock worth $6,931,000 after acquiring an additional 537,565 shares during the last quarter. First Eagle Investment Management LLC lifted its stake in Backblaze by 46.3% in the fourth quarter. First Eagle Investment Management LLC now owns 659,515 shares of the company’s stock worth $5,006,000 after acquiring an additional 208,759 shares during the last quarter. Gilder Gagnon Howe & Co. LLC lifted its stake in Backblaze by 2.1% in the first quarter. Gilder Gagnon Howe & Co. LLC now owns 395,764 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,999,000 after acquiring an additional 8,133 shares during the last quarter. Finally, BlackRock Inc. lifted its stake in Backblaze by 149.7% in the second quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 296,600 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,284,000 after acquiring an additional 177,797 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 54.03% of the company’s stock.

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.