Short Interest in Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE) Declines By 30.7%

Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE) was the target of a large decline in short interest in May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 811,000 shares, a decline of 30.7% from the April 30th total of 1,170,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 357,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 2.3 days. Currently, 2.9% of the shares of the stock are short sold.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have issued reports on BLZE. Oppenheimer boosted their target price on shares of Backblaze from $11.00 to $13.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 17th. Raymond James lifted their target price on Backblaze from $12.00 to $14.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, February 16th. Finally, B. Riley increased their price target on shares of Backblaze from $9.00 to $11.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, February 9th.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, VP Tina Cessna sold 20,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, March 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $9.95, for a total transaction of $199,000.00. Following the sale, the vice president now directly owns 121,083 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,204,775.85. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Insiders have sold 29,730 shares of company stock worth $264,088 in the last ninety days. 5.20% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Backblaze

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of BLZE. Cutler Group LLC CA raised its stake in shares of Backblaze by 553.0% in the 4th quarter. Cutler Group LLC CA now owns 3,918 shares of the company’s stock valued at $29,000 after acquiring an additional 3,318 shares in the last quarter. AJOVista LLC bought a new stake in Backblaze during the fourth quarter valued at about $67,000. Dynamic Technology Lab Private Ltd acquired a new stake in shares of Backblaze in the fourth quarter valued at about $76,000. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC bought a new position in shares of Backblaze in the fourth quarter worth about $86,000. Finally, Jump Financial LLC acquired a new position in shares of Backblaze during the 3rd quarter worth about $121,000. 54.03% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Backblaze Stock Down 5.7 %

Shares of BLZE traded down $0.37 during midday trading on Friday, reaching $6.11. 443,386 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 370,679. The company has a market cap of $253.57 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -4.30 and a beta of 1.21. The company has a quick ratio of 0.70, a current ratio of 0.70 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34. Backblaze has a 12-month low of $3.50 and a 12-month high of $12.65. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $8.81 and a 200-day simple moving average of $8.56.

Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, May 8th. The company reported ($0.27) EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of ($0.31) by $0.04. The company had revenue of $29.97 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $29.75 million. Backblaze had a negative net margin of 48.62% and a negative return on equity of 105.67%. Research analysts forecast that Backblaze will post -1.09 EPS for the current 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.