Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) Stock Price Up 7.6% – Here’s Why

Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE) shares were up 7.6% during trading on Tuesday . The company traded as high as $16.30 and last traded at $16.46. 1,434,918 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 25% from the average daily volume of 1,923,555 shares. The stock had previously closed at $15.30.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms have weighed in on BLZE. Citizens Jmp upped their target price on Backblaze from $8.00 to $14.00 and gave the company a “market outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, June 24th. William Blair raised Backblaze from an “underperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, June 23rd. Wall Street Zen lowered shares of Backblaze from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, June 27th. Citigroup reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of Backblaze in a research note on Wednesday, June 24th. Finally, Lake Street Capital raised their target price on shares of Backblaze from $11.00 to $14.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, June 24th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $12.93.

Backblaze Stock Performance

The company has a market capitalization of $984.14 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -41.97 and a beta of 1.55. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $8.76 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $5.81. The company has a quick ratio of 1.05, a current ratio of 1.05 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.28.

Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Monday, May 4th. The company reported $0.04 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.02 by $0.02. The business had revenue of $38.67 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $37.78 million. Backblaze had a negative return on equity of 20.54% and a negative net margin of 14.97%. As a group, analysts forecast that Backblaze, Inc. will post -0.37 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Backblaze

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted its stake in shares of Backblaze by 95.9% during the third quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 351,657 shares of the company’s stock valued at $3,263,000 after buying an additional 172,165 shares during the period. Baader Bank Aktiengesellschaft purchased a new stake in Backblaze in the 4th quarter worth approximately $699,000. Shannon River Fund Management LLC acquired a new position in Backblaze in the 3rd quarter valued at $2,129,000. GSA Capital Partners LLP raised its holdings in Backblaze by 159.7% in the 4th quarter. GSA Capital Partners LLP now owns 299,218 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,394,000 after acquiring an additional 184,015 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Nano Cap New Millennium Growth Fund L P purchased a new position in shares of Backblaze during the 4th quarter worth $1,165,000. 54.03% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.