Analysts Set Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE) PT at $19.71

Shares of Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE) have been given a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” by the ten brokerages that are presently covering the stock, MarketBeat Ratings reports. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, one has given a hold recommendation and eight have issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average 1 year price objective among brokerages that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $19.7143.

Several research analysts recently issued reports on the stock. B. Riley Financial increased their price target on shares of Backblaze from $16.00 to $24.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 4th. Citigroup reiterated a “market outperform” rating on shares of Backblaze in a research report on Thursday, July 23rd. William Blair raised Backblaze from an “underperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, June 23rd. Craig Hallum raised Backblaze from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $6.50 to $16.00 in a research note on Tuesday, June 23rd. Finally, Lake Street Capital reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $21.00 price target on shares of Backblaze in a report on Tuesday, August 4th.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Backblaze news, CFO Marc Suidan sold 2,110 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, August 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $15.82, for a total value of $33,380.20. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer owned 349,518 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,529,374.76. This trade represents a 0.60% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. Also, CEO Gleb Budman sold 12,855 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, August 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $15.82, for a total transaction of $203,366.10. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 2,192,103 shares in the company, valued at $34,679,069.46. The trade was a 0.58% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. Corporate insiders own 4.20% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Backblaze

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its position in Backblaze by 152.3% during the first quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 517,586 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,785,000 after purchasing an additional 312,459 shares in the last quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC grew its holdings in Backblaze by 44.6% in the first quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC now owns 1,172,657 shares of the company’s stock valued at $4,046,000 after purchasing an additional 361,905 shares during the last quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership increased its position in shares of Backblaze by 56.0% in the first quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 300,504 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,037,000 after buying an additional 107,876 shares in the last quarter. Baader Bank Aktiengesellschaft purchased a new position in shares of Backblaze in the fourth quarter valued at $699,000. Finally, GSA Capital Partners LLP raised its stake in shares of Backblaze by 159.7% during the 4th quarter. GSA Capital Partners LLP now owns 299,218 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,394,000 after buying an additional 184,015 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 54.03% of the company’s stock.

Backblaze Price Performance

Backblaze stock opened at $15.28 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34, a current ratio of 1.00 and a quick ratio of 1.00. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $15.05 and a 200-day simple moving average of $8.64. Backblaze has a 12 month low of $3.26 and a 12 month high of $23.99. The stock has a market capitalization of $945.83 million, a PE ratio of -44.94 and a beta of 1.56.

Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Monday, August 3rd. The company reported $0.08 earnings per share 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 analyst estimates of $39.94 million. Backblaze had a negative net margin of 13.07% and a negative return on equity of 16.73%. Equities analysts predict that Backblaze will post -0.26 earnings per share for the current year.

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.