Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) Hits New 12-Month High – Here’s Why

Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE) shares hit a new 52-week high during mid-day trading on Tuesday . The company traded as high as $10.95 and last traded at $10.5740, with a volume of 11095188 shares changing hands. The stock had previously closed at $8.12.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research firms have recently weighed in on BLZE. Wall Street Zen raised shares of Backblaze from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday, May 9th. Citizens Jmp reissued a “market outperform” rating and set a $8.00 price objective on shares of Backblaze in a report on Tuesday, May 5th. Loop Capital set a $8.00 target price on shares of Backblaze in a research report on Tuesday, February 24th. B. Riley Financial upgraded shares of Backblaze to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, April 2nd. Finally, Needham & Company LLC increased their price target on shares of Backblaze from $6.00 to $8.50 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, May 5th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, six have assigned a Buy rating, one has issued a Hold rating and two have issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $8.00.

Backblaze Stock Performance

The company has a market capitalization of $592.65 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -25.28 and a beta of 1.71. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $6.63 and a 200 day simple moving average of $5.13. 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 announced its quarterly earnings results on Monday, May 4th. The company reported $0.04 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.02 by $0.02. Backblaze had a negative return on equity of 20.54% and a negative net margin of 14.97%.The business had revenue of $38.67 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $37.78 million. As a group, analysts anticipate that Backblaze, Inc. will post -0.33 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Backblaze

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Wasatch Advisors LP bought a new position in shares of Backblaze during the third quarter worth about $17,021,000. Pillsbury Lake Capital LLC acquired a new position in Backblaze during the 4th quarter valued at about $8,058,000. Renaissance Technologies LLC grew its position in Backblaze by 94.5% in the 4th quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC now owns 810,752 shares of the company’s stock worth $3,778,000 after purchasing an additional 393,936 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its stake in shares of Backblaze by 152.3% in the first quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 517,586 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,785,000 after purchasing an additional 312,459 shares during the period. Finally, Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership raised its holdings in shares of Backblaze by 165.9% during the third quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 480,281 shares of the company’s stock valued at $4,457,000 after buying an additional 299,672 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 54.03% of the company’s stock.

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.