Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE) Sees Significant Decrease in Short Interest

Key Points

• Short interest fell 33.7% to 1.79 million shares as of August 14, representing 3.0% of Backblaze’s outstanding shares and only 0.4 days of average trading volume.
• Analyst sentiment remained positive overall, with eight Buy ratings, one Hold, and one Sell; the consensus rating was Moderate Buy with a $19.71 price target.
• Backblaze beat quarterly expectations, reporting $0.08 in earnings per share versus a $0.02 estimate and $42.71 million in revenue versus $39.94 million expected. Institutional investors owned 54.03% of the stock, while executives sold shares to cover tax obligations from vested equity awards.

Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE - Get Free Report) was the recipient of a large decline in short interest in August. As of August 14th, there was short interest totaling 1,787,453 shares, a decline of 33.7% from the July 30th total of 2,694,870 shares. Currently, 3.0% of the shares of the stock are short sold. Based on an average daily volume of 4,057,580 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 0.4 days.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms have weighed in on BLZE. Citizens Jmp raised their price target on Backblaze from $16.00 to $21.00 and gave the company a "market outperform" rating in a report on Tuesday, August 4th. Weiss Ratings restated a "sell (e+)" rating on shares of Backblaze in a research report on Wednesday, August 12th. Needham & Company LLC raised their target price on shares of Backblaze from $14.00 to $23.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 4th. B. Riley Financial lifted their target price on shares of Backblaze from $16.00 to $24.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 4th. Finally, Lake Street Capital reissued a "buy" rating and issued a $21.00 price target on shares of Backblaze in a research note 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.com, the company presently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $19.71.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CEO Gleb Budman sold 12,855 shares of Backblaze 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 completion of the sale, 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 ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. 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 business's stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $15.82, for a total value of $33,380.20. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer owned 349,518 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $5,529,374.76. The trade was a 0.60% 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. 4.20% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Backblaze

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in BLZE. AQR Capital Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Backblaze in the 1st quarter valued at $426,000. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. raised its position in Backblaze by 17.6% in the 1st quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 27,094 shares of the company's stock worth $131,000 after purchasing an additional 4,060 shares during the period. Millennium Management LLC lifted its stake in Backblaze by 32.5% in the first quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 825,422 shares of the company's stock worth $3,987,000 after purchasing an additional 202,609 shares during the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. boosted its position in Backblaze by 27.1% during the first quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 261,610 shares of the company's stock valued at $1,264,000 after buying an additional 55,720 shares during the period. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its position in Backblaze by 13.5% during the second quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,168,558 shares of the company's stock valued at $6,428,000 after buying an additional 139,429 shares during the period. 54.03% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Backblaze Price Performance

Shares of BLZE traded down $0.46 during midday trading on Tuesday, reaching $13.67. The stock had a trading volume of 1,357,514 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,165,801. 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 company has a market capitalization of $846.17 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -40.20 and a beta of 1.56. The company's 50-day moving average is $15.57 and its 200 day moving average is $8.94. Backblaze has a 12-month low of $3.26 and a 12-month high of $23.99.

Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE - Get Free Report) last announced 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 company had revenue of $42.71 million for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $39.94 million. Backblaze had a negative return on equity of 16.73% and a negative net margin of 13.07%. On average, equities analysts predict that Backblaze will post -0.26 EPS for the current fiscal 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.

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