Backblaze’s (BLZE) Buy Rating Reiterated at Needham & Company LLC

Needham & Company LLC reissued their buy rating on shares of Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) in a report published on Thursday morning,Benzinga reports. They currently have a $23.00 target price on the stock.

A number of other equities research analysts have also recently commented on BLZE. Craig Hallum raised Backblaze from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $6.50 to $16.00 in a research note on Tuesday, June 23rd. B. Riley Financial upped their target price on Backblaze from $16.00 to $24.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 4th. Oppenheimer increased their target price on Backblaze from $15.00 to $25.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 4th. Citizens Jmp lifted their price target on shares of Backblaze from $16.00 to $21.00 and gave the company a “market outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 4th. Finally, William Blair upgraded shares of Backblaze from an “underperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, June 23rd. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $19.71.

Backblaze Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ BLZE opened at $12.40 on Thursday. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $15.34 and its 200-day moving average price is $9.47. Backblaze has a 1-year low of $3.26 and a 1-year high of $23.99. The firm has a market capitalization of $767.56 million, a P/E ratio of -36.47 and a beta of 1.56. The company has a current ratio of 1.00, a quick ratio of 1.00 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34.

Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) last issued its earnings results on Monday, August 3rd. The company reported $0.08 EPS for the quarter, beating 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 company had revenue of $42.71 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $39.94 million. Equities research analysts anticipate that Backblaze will post -0.28 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Backblaze

In related news, CFO Marc Suidan sold 2,110 shares of the business’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 transaction, the chief financial officer directly owned 349,518 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,529,374.76. The trade was a 0.60% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. Also, CEO Gleb Budman sold 12,855 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated 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 directly owned 2,192,103 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $34,679,069.46. The trade was a 0.58% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. 4.20% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Backblaze

Several institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Allworth Financial LP raised its stake in Backblaze by 83.8% in 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 period. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. lifted its holdings in Backblaze by 8.2% during the second quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 29,323 shares of the company’s stock valued at $161,000 after purchasing an additional 2,229 shares during the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. boosted its position in Backblaze by 8.3% during the fourth quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 44,103 shares of the company’s stock worth $206,000 after purchasing an additional 3,363 shares during the period. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD increased its stake in shares of Backblaze by 12.3% in the fourth quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 32,219 shares of the company’s stock worth $151,000 after purchasing an additional 3,523 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Cerity Partners LLC increased its stake in shares of Backblaze by 3.6% in the second quarter. Cerity Partners LLC now owns 109,001 shares of the company’s stock worth $600,000 after purchasing an additional 3,763 shares in the last quarter. 54.03% of the stock is 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.