Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) Receives Buy Rating from Needham & Company LLC

Key Points

• Needham & Company reaffirmed a “Buy” rating on Backblaze and set a $23 price target, implying 73.85% upside from the prior close. Analysts overall give the stock a “Moderate Buy” consensus rating with a $19.71 average target.
• Backblaze exceeded quarterly expectations, reporting $0.08 EPS versus a $0.02 estimate and revenue of $42.71 million versus the $39.94 million consensus. However, the company remains unprofitable, with a negative net margin and analysts forecasting a full-year loss.
• Backblaze shares opened at $13.23, while institutional investors and hedge funds own 54.03% of the stock. CEO and CFO share sales were made to cover tax obligations tied to equity awards, and insiders retain a 4.20% ownership stake.

Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE - Get Free Report)'s stock had its "buy" rating reissued by stock analysts at Needham & Company LLC in a report released on Thursday, Benzinga reports. They currently have a $23.00 price objective on the stock. Needham & Company LLC's target price would indicate a potential upside of 73.85% from the company's previous close.

Several other analysts have also recently commented on BLZE. Lake Street Capital restated a "buy" rating and set a $21.00 price target on shares of Backblaze in a report on Tuesday, August 4th. Citigroup reiterated a "market outperform" rating on shares of Backblaze in a research note on Thursday, July 23rd. William Blair raised shares of Backblaze from an "underperform" rating to a "market perform" rating in a report on Tuesday, June 23rd. Wall Street Zen raised Backblaze from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating in a report on Saturday, August 8th. Finally, Citizens Jmp boosted their target price on shares of Backblaze from $16.00 to $21.00 and gave the stock a "market outperform" rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 4th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $19.71.

Backblaze Stock Performance

Shares of BLZE stock opened at $13.23 on Thursday. The company has a market capitalization of $818.94 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -38.91 and a beta of 1.56. Backblaze has a 1-year low of $3.26 and a 1-year high of $23.99. 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 stock's fifty day simple moving average is $15.47 and its 200-day simple moving average is $9.39.

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

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Gleb Budman sold 12,855 shares of the firm'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 transaction, the chief executive officer 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 position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed 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, CFO Marc Suidan sold 2,110 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 21st. The shares were 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 $5,529,374.76. This trade represents a 0.60% decrease in their position. 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. 4.20% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Backblaze

Large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Royal Bank of Canada grew its holdings in Backblaze by 1,388.2% during the 4th quarter. Royal Bank of Canada now owns 5,551 shares of the company's stock worth $26,000 after acquiring an additional 5,178 shares during the period. Allworth Financial LP raised its position in shares of Backblaze by 83.8% during the 2nd quarter. Allworth Financial LP now owns 1,726 shares of the company's stock valued at $27,000 after acquiring an additional 787 shares during the last quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC acquired a new position in shares of Backblaze in the 4th quarter valued at $47,000. Oxford Asset Management LLP acquired a new position in shares of Backblaze in the 4th quarter valued at $47,000. Finally, M&T Bank Corp acquired a new position in shares of Backblaze in the 4th quarter valued at $49,000. 54.03% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.

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