Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE) Sees Significant Decline in Short Interest

Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE) was the recipient of a large drop in short interest in the month of October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 1,070,000 shares, a drop of 16.4% from the October 15th total of 1,280,000 shares. Currently, 3.7% of the shares of the company are short sold. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 244,500 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 4.4 days.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Gleb Budman sold 4,527 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, August 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $6.45, for a total transaction of $29,199.15. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 1,874,967 shares in the company, valued at approximately $12,093,537.15. This represents a 0.24 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, VP Tina Cessna sold 3,894 shares of the stock in a transaction 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 sale, the vice president now directly owns 153,440 shares in the company, valued at approximately $989,688. This trade represents a 2.47 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 31,483 shares of company stock worth $202,890 in the last 90 days. Company insiders own 5.20% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Backblaze

Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Verition Fund Management LLC raised its position in Backblaze by 15.4% in the third quarter. Verition Fund Management LLC now owns 15,800 shares of the company’s stock valued at $101,000 after purchasing an additional 2,106 shares during the last quarter. ClariVest Asset Management LLC raised its position in Backblaze by 2.9% in the second quarter. ClariVest Asset Management LLC now owns 75,554 shares of the company’s stock valued at $465,000 after purchasing an additional 2,154 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its position in Backblaze by 4.5% in the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 118,156 shares of the company’s stock valued at $755,000 after purchasing an additional 5,098 shares during the last quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC raised its position in Backblaze by 84.1% in the second quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 21,283 shares of the company’s stock valued at $131,000 after purchasing an additional 9,720 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Lazard Asset Management LLC raised its position in Backblaze by 165.7% in the first quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC now owns 18,102 shares of the company’s stock valued at $185,000 after purchasing an additional 11,289 shares during the last quarter. 54.03% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Backblaze Price Performance

Shares of BLZE stock traded down $0.28 on Friday, hitting $6.28. 174,247 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 340,531. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.39, a current ratio of 0.54 and a quick ratio of 0.54. Backblaze has a 12 month low of $4.91 and a 12 month high of $12.65. The stock has a market cap of $269.41 million, a P/E ratio of -5.66 and a beta of 0.99. The company has a 50 day moving average of $6.73 and a 200 day moving average of $6.61.

Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 7th. The company reported ($0.29) earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.11) by ($0.18). Backblaze had a negative return on equity of 100.67% and a negative net margin of 37.13%. The business had revenue of $32.59 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $32.54 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned ($0.43) earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts predict that Backblaze will post -0.99 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Oppenheimer reduced their target price on Backblaze from $11.00 to $10.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, August 9th. Raymond James increased their target price on Backblaze from $13.00 to $14.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, November 8th. Finally, Craig Hallum increased their target price on Backblaze from $10.00 to $11.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, October 21st.

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.