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

Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE) saw a large drop in short interest in September. As of September 15th, there was short interest totalling 1,330,000 shares, a drop of 11.3% from the August 31st total of 1,500,000 shares. Approximately 4.6% of the company’s stock are short sold. Based on an average daily volume of 379,500 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 3.5 days.

Backblaze Stock Performance

Shares of Backblaze stock traded down $0.02 during midday trading on Monday, hitting $6.36. The company had a trading volume of 131,416 shares, compared to its average volume of 362,051. The stock has a market cap of $263.94 million, a PE ratio of -4.43 and a beta of 1.01. Backblaze has a 1-year low of $4.80 and a 1-year high of $12.65. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $6.17 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $7.26. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34, a current ratio of 0.61 and a quick ratio of 0.61.

Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 8th. The company reported ($0.25) EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.12) by ($0.13). Backblaze had a negative net margin of 42.34% and a negative return on equity of 104.71%. The company had revenue of $31.29 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $30.93 million. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted ($0.38) EPS. As a group, equities analysts predict that Backblaze will post -0.99 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Backblaze

In related news, VP Tina Cessna sold 3,894 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $6.45, for a total value of $25,116.30. Following the completion of the sale, the vice president now owns 153,440 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $989,688. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. In other Backblaze news, Director Barbara H. Nelson sold 16,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $6.79, for a total value of $108,640.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 62,346 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $423,329.34. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, VP Tina Cessna sold 3,894 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $6.45, for a total value of $25,116.30. Following the transaction, the vice president now directly owns 153,440 shares in the company, valued at approximately $989,688. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 47,483 shares of company stock valued at $311,530 in the last three months. Corporate insiders own 5.20% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Backblaze

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. Acadian Asset Management LLC boosted its stake in Backblaze by 117.0% during the first quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 689,599 shares of the company’s stock worth $7,052,000 after buying an additional 371,851 shares in the last quarter. First Eagle Investment Management LLC increased its stake in Backblaze by 50.6% in the second quarter. First Eagle Investment Management LLC now owns 1,094,490 shares of the company’s stock valued at $6,742,000 after acquiring an additional 367,500 shares during the period. Scalar Gauge Management LLC acquired a new position in Backblaze in the fourth quarter worth about $1,677,000. Essex Investment Management Co. LLC bought a new position in Backblaze during the first quarter worth about $2,048,000. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp acquired a new stake in Backblaze during the second quarter valued at approximately $701,000. 54.03% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. Craig Hallum boosted their price objective on shares of Backblaze from $9.00 to $10.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, August 9th. Oppenheimer cut their target price on shares of Backblaze from $11.00 to $10.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, August 9th.

Backblaze Company Profile

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.