Short Interest in Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE) Increases By 83.8%

Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE) was the recipient of a large growth in short interest during the month of June. As of June 30th, there was short interest totaling 2,754,152 shares, a growth of 83.8% from the June 15th total of 1,498,619 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 8,229,493 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 0.3 days. Currently, 4.8% of the company’s stock are sold short.

Backblaze Stock Performance

BLZE stock opened at $13.73 on Friday. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $10.47 and its 200 day simple moving average is $6.45. Backblaze has a 12-month low of $3.26 and a 12-month high of $18.25. The firm has a market cap of $825.17 million, a P/E ratio of -35.21 and a beta of 1.55. The company has a current ratio of 1.05, a quick ratio of 1.05 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.28.

Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) last released its quarterly earnings data on Monday, May 4th. The company reported $0.04 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.02 by $0.02. The firm had revenue of $38.67 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $37.78 million. Backblaze had a negative net margin of 14.97% and a negative return on equity of 20.54%. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Backblaze will post -0.37 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research analysts have weighed in on the stock. B. Riley Financial raised their price objective on shares of Backblaze from $7.00 to $16.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, June 24th. Citigroup restated an “outperform” rating on shares of Backblaze in a research note on Wednesday, June 24th. Weiss Ratings cut shares of Backblaze from a “sell (d-)” rating to a “sell (e+)” rating in a research report on Friday, May 15th. Wall Street Zen downgraded Backblaze from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, June 27th. Finally, Citizens Jmp lifted their price target on Backblaze from $8.00 to $14.00 and gave the stock a “market outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, June 24th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Backblaze has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $12.93.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Wasatch Advisors LP acquired a new position in shares of Backblaze in the 3rd quarter valued at about $17,021,000. Pillsbury Lake Capital LLC bought a new stake in shares of Backblaze during the 4th quarter valued at about $8,058,000. Renaissance Technologies LLC raised its stake in Backblaze by 94.5% during the fourth quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC now owns 810,752 shares of the company’s stock worth $3,778,000 after acquiring an additional 393,936 shares during the period. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its stake in Backblaze by 152.3% during the first quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 517,586 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,785,000 after acquiring an additional 312,459 shares during the period. Finally, Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership lifted its holdings in Backblaze by 165.9% in the third quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 480,281 shares of the company’s stock worth $4,457,000 after acquiring an additional 299,672 shares during the last quarter. 54.03% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.