Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE) Receives Consensus Recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from Analysts

Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE) has received an average recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the ten ratings firms that are currently covering the firm, MarketBeat reports. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has assigned a hold rating and eight have issued a buy rating on the company. The average twelve-month target price among analysts that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $19.7143.

BLZE has been the topic of several analyst reports. B. Riley Financial increased their price objective on shares of Backblaze from $16.00 to $24.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 4th. Wall Street Zen cut shares of Backblaze from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, September 19th. William Blair upgraded shares of Backblaze from an “underperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, June 23rd. Weiss Ratings reissued a “sell (e+)” rating on shares of Backblaze in a research note on Wednesday, August 12th. Finally, Citigroup restated a “market outperform” rating on shares of Backblaze in a research report on Monday, September 14th.

Insider Activity

In other news, CFO Marc Suidan sold 2,110 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $15.82, for a total transaction of $33,380.20. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer directly owned 349,518 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,529,374.76. The trade was a 0.60% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. 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 company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $15.82, for a total value of $203,366.10. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 2,192,103 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $34,679,069.46. This trade represents a 0.58% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. 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 Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of BLZE. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its stake in 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 in the last quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC boosted its position in shares of Backblaze by 44.6% during the first quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC now owns 1,172,657 shares of the company’s stock worth $4,046,000 after purchasing an additional 361,905 shares in the last quarter. AWM Investment Company Inc. bought a new position in shares of Backblaze during the second quarter worth $22,207,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership grew its holdings in shares of Backblaze by 56.0% in the 1st 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 during the period. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp acquired a new position in shares of Backblaze in the 2nd quarter valued at $3,074,000. Institutional investors own 54.03% of the company’s stock.

Backblaze Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:BLZE opened at $14.06 on Thursday. The company has a current ratio of 1.00, a quick ratio of 1.00 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34. Backblaze has a 1-year low of $3.26 and a 1-year high of $23.99. The stock has a market capitalization of $870.31 million, a P/E ratio of -41.35 and a beta of 1.56. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $14.88 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $10.05.

Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) last issued its earnings results on Monday, August 3rd. The company reported $0.08 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.02 by $0.06. Backblaze had a negative net margin of 13.07% and a negative return on equity of 16.73%. The company had revenue of $42.71 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $39.94 million. Equities analysts predict that Backblaze will post -0.28 earnings per share for the current year.

Backblaze Company Profile

Backblaze, Inc provides cloud storage and data backup services for businesses, developers and individual users. Its platform is designed to help customers store, protect, manage and recover data through scalable cloud-based infrastructure.

The company’s principal offerings include Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage, an object-storage service used for applications, content distribution, backup, archiving and disaster recovery, and Backblaze Computer Backup, which helps individuals and organizations back up data from computers.