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

Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE) saw a large decline in short interest during the month of November. As of November 30th, there was short interest totalling 782,300 shares, a decline of 11.9% from the November 15th total of 888,200 shares. Approximately 2.3% of the company’s stock are short sold. Based on an average daily volume of 342,600 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 2.3 days.

Insider Transactions at Backblaze

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

Institutional Trading of Backblaze

Institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Bank of New York Mellon Corp acquired a new stake in shares of Backblaze in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $701,000. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company acquired a new stake in shares of Backblaze in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $102,000. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Backblaze in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $944,000. Cerity Partners LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Backblaze in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $640,000. Finally, First Eagle Investment Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of Backblaze by 50.6% in the 2nd quarter. First Eagle Investment Management LLC now owns 1,094,490 shares of the company’s stock worth $6,742,000 after acquiring an additional 367,500 shares during the period. 54.03% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

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

Backblaze Stock Performance

Backblaze stock traded up $0.04 during midday trading on Monday, reaching $6.80. 26,081 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 365,149. The company has a current ratio of 0.54, a quick ratio of 0.54 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.39. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $6.91 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $6.42. The firm has a market cap of $301.92 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -6.09 and a beta of 0.91. Backblaze has a fifty-two week low of $4.91 and a fifty-two week high of $12.65.

Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, November 7th. The company reported ($0.29) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.11) by ($0.18). The firm had revenue of $32.59 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $32.54 million. Backblaze had a negative net margin of 37.13% and a negative return on equity of 100.67%. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned ($0.43) earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Backblaze will post -1.02 earnings per share for the current year.

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.