Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) & Nomura Research Institute (OTCMKTS:NRILY) Head-To-Head Survey

Nomura Research Institute (OTCMKTS:NRILY) and Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) are both technology companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, profitability, valuation, analyst recommendations, earnings, risk and institutional ownership.

Volatility and Risk

Nomura Research Institute has a beta of 0.71, meaning that its stock price is 29% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Backblaze has a beta of 1.56, meaning that its stock price is 56% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Nomura Research Institute and Backblaze”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Nomura Research Institute	$5.41 billion	3.46	$100.70 million	$0.23	144.96
Backblaze	$156.30 million	5.33	-$25.61 million	($0.34)	-39.56

Nomura Research Institute has higher revenue and earnings than Backblaze. Backblaze is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Nomura Research Institute, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Nomura Research Institute and Backblaze’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Nomura Research Institute	2.41%	4.38%	2.08%
Backblaze	-13.07%	-16.73%	-7.10%

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings for Nomura Research Institute and Backblaze, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Nomura Research Institute	1	1	0	1	2.33
Backblaze	1	1	8	0	2.70

Backblaze has a consensus price target of $19.71, suggesting a potential upside of 46.57%. Given Backblaze’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Backblaze is more favorable than Nomura Research Institute.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

54.0% of Backblaze shares are held by institutional investors. 61.1% of Nomura Research Institute shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 4.2% of Backblaze shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Summary

Nomura Research Institute beats Backblaze on 9 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Nomura Research Institute

Nomura Research Institute, Ltd. provides consulting, financial information technology (IT) solution, industrial IT solution, and IT platform services in Japan and internationally. Its Consulting segment offers management, operational, and system consulting services for enterprises and government agencies. This segment also offers research, future projections, and recommendations to society, economics, business, technology, etc. The company's Financial IT Solutions segment provides system consulting, development, and management solutions, as well as shared online and BPO services for the financial institutions, including the securities, insurance, banking, asset management, and other financial sectors. Its Industrial IT Solutions segment offers system consulting, development, and management solutions, as well as shared online services primarily for the distribution, manufacturing, service, and public sectors. The company's IT Platform Services segment engages in the data center operation activities and construction of IT platforms and networks to the Financial IT and Industrial IT Solutions segments, as well as provides IT platform solutions and information security services to external clients. This segment is also involved in the research related to advance IT, etc. The company was founded in 1965 and is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.

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. 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. In addition, the company offers Backblaze Computer Backup that automatically backs up data from laptops and desktops for businesses and individuals, which provides a subscription-based Software-as-a-Service and serves use cases, including computer backup, ransomware protection, theft and loss protection, and remote access. It serves the public cloud IaaS storage and Data-Protection-as-a-Service markets. The company was incorporated in 2007 and is headquartered in San Mateo, California.