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

Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE) saw a significant decrease in short interest during the month of May. As of May 31st, there was short interest totalling 464,700 shares, a decrease of 42.7% from the May 15th total of 811,000 shares. Approximately 1.7% of the shares of the stock are short sold. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 317,800 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 1.5 days.

Insider Activity at Backblaze

In related news, VP Tina Cessna sold 20,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $9.95, for a total transaction of $199,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now directly owns 121,083 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,204,775.85. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. In related news, CFO Francis P. Patchel sold 10,328 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, May 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $6.45, for a total transaction of $66,615.60. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 162,653 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,049,111.85. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, VP Tina Cessna sold 20,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $9.95, for a total value of $199,000.00. Following the sale, the vice president now owns 121,083 shares in the company, valued at $1,204,775.85. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders sold 40,058 shares of company stock valued at $330,703. Insiders own 5.20% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Cutler Group LLC CA increased its holdings in Backblaze by 553.0% during the 4th quarter. Cutler Group LLC CA now owns 3,918 shares of the company’s stock worth $29,000 after purchasing an additional 3,318 shares during the period. AJOVista LLC purchased a new position in Backblaze during the 4th quarter worth $67,000. Dynamic Technology Lab Private Ltd purchased a new position in Backblaze during the 4th quarter worth $76,000. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC purchased a new position in Backblaze during the 4th quarter worth $86,000. Finally, Lazard Asset Management LLC increased its holdings in Backblaze by 165.7% during the 1st quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC now owns 18,102 shares of the company’s stock worth $185,000 after purchasing an additional 11,289 shares during the period. 54.03% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages have issued reports on BLZE. Oppenheimer upped their price objective on Backblaze from $11.00 to $13.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 17th. Raymond James increased their price target on Backblaze from $12.00 to $14.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, February 16th.

Backblaze Trading Down 1.3 %

Shares of NASDAQ BLZE traded down $0.08 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $6.02. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 340,356 shares, compared to its average volume of 298,697. The company has a current ratio of 0.70, a quick ratio of 0.70 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34. The business’s 50 day moving average is $7.93 and its two-hundred day moving average is $8.52. Backblaze has a 12-month low of $3.50 and a 12-month high of $12.65. The firm has a market cap of $249.83 million, a P/E ratio of -4.24 and a beta of 1.02.

Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 8th. The company reported ($0.27) earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of ($0.31) by $0.04. The firm had revenue of $29.97 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $29.75 million. Backblaze had a negative return on equity of 105.67% and a negative net margin of 48.62%. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Backblaze will post -1.09 EPS 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.