Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) Sees Unusually-High Trading Volume – Still a Buy?

Shares of Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE) saw an uptick in trading volume on Thursday . Approximately 2,544,766 shares were traded during trading, an increase of 21% from the previous session’s volume of 2,110,377 shares.The stock last traded at $16.3380 and had previously closed at $16.88.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts have recently issued reports on BLZE shares. Needham & Company LLC increased their price target on Backblaze from $14.00 to $23.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 4th. Oppenheimer upped their price target on Backblaze from $15.00 to $25.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 4th. Citizens Jmp upped their target price on Backblaze from $16.00 to $21.00 and gave the company a “market outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 4th. Lake Street Capital reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $21.00 price target on shares of Backblaze in a research note on Tuesday, August 4th. Finally, Citigroup restated a “market outperform” rating on shares of Backblaze in a report on Thursday, July 23rd. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $19.71.

Backblaze Stock Down 2.7%

The business has a fifty day moving average price of $14.43 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $8.32. The company has a current ratio of 1.00, a quick ratio of 1.00 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34. The company has a market cap of $1.02 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -48.29 and a beta of 1.56.

Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Monday, August 3rd. The company reported $0.08 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.02 by $0.06. The firm had revenue of $42.71 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $39.94 million. Backblaze had a negative net margin of 13.07% and a negative return on equity of 16.73%. On average, equities analysts predict that Backblaze, Inc. will post -0.26 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Trading of Backblaze

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Royal Bank of Canada grew its stake in Backblaze by 1,388.2% in the fourth quarter. Royal Bank of Canada now owns 5,551 shares of the company’s stock valued at $26,000 after purchasing an additional 5,178 shares in the last quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in Backblaze in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $47,000. Oxford Asset Management LLP acquired a new stake in Backblaze in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $47,000. M&T Bank Corp bought a new stake in Backblaze in the fourth quarter worth approximately $49,000. Finally, Occudo Quantitative Strategies LP bought a new stake in Backblaze in the second quarter worth approximately $58,000. 54.03% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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. 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.