Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE) Short Interest Up 37.8% in March

Key Points

• Short interest surged 37.8% in March to 2,020,357 shares as of March 13, representing about 3.5% of the float and a short-interest ratio of 1.9 days.
• BLZE opened at $3.40 with a market cap of $204.3M, a negative P/E of -7.39, a 52-week range of $3.36–$10.86, and 50-/200-day moving averages of $4.08 and $6.01 respectively.
• Analysts collectively rate Backblaze a "Moderate Buy" with a consensus target of $7.21 (seven Buys, one Hold, two Sells), though several firms recently trimmed price targets while keeping buy/outperform stances.

Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE - Get Free Report) was the target of a significant growth in short interest in the month of March. As of March 13th, there was short interest totaling 2,020,357 shares, a growth of 37.8% from the February 26th total of 1,466,622 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 1,042,147 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 1.9 days. Approximately 3.5% of the company's shares are short sold.

Backblaze Price Performance

Shares of BLZE stock opened at $3.40 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $204.34 million, a P/E ratio of -7.39 and a beta of 1.30. The company's 50-day simple moving average is $4.08 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $6.01. Backblaze has a one year low of $3.36 and a one year high of $10.86. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.26, a current ratio of 1.07 and a quick ratio of 1.07.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research analysts have recently commented on BLZE shares. Citigroup reaffirmed a "market outperform" rating on shares of Backblaze in a research note on Tuesday, February 24th. B. Riley Financial dropped their price objective on Backblaze from $9.00 to $7.50 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, February 24th. Lake Street Capital reaffirmed a "buy" rating on shares of Backblaze in a research report on Tuesday, February 24th. Needham & Company LLC reduced their target price on Backblaze from $8.00 to $6.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, February 24th. Finally, Oppenheimer decreased their target price on Backblaze from $9.50 to $8.50 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, February 24th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has given a Hold rating and two have issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Backblaze presently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $7.21.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Royal Bank of Canada raised its position in Backblaze by 1,388.2% during the 4th 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. Ameritas Investment Partners Inc. increased its stake in shares of Backblaze by 39.9% during the second quarter. Ameritas Investment Partners Inc. now owns 5,469 shares of the company's stock valued at $30,000 after buying an additional 1,559 shares during the period. Global Retirement Partners LLC bought a new stake in shares of Backblaze in the third quarter valued at about $47,000. ProShare Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of Backblaze in the fourth quarter valued at about $47,000. Finally, Oxford Asset Management LLP purchased a new stake in Backblaze in the fourth quarter worth about $47,000. Institutional investors own 54.03% of the company's stock.

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.

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