Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) Shares Gap Down – Here’s What Happened

Shares of Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE) gapped down prior to trading on Wednesday . The stock had previously closed at $19.20, but opened at $16.75. Backblaze shares last traded at $16.5090, with a volume of 824,621 shares changing hands.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

BLZE has been the subject of several analyst reports. B. Riley Financial raised 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. Lake Street Capital reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $21.00 price target on shares of Backblaze in a research report on Tuesday, August 4th. Needham & Company LLC increased their price objective on Backblaze from $14.00 to $23.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 4th. Craig Hallum raised Backblaze from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price objective for the company from $6.50 to $16.00 in a report on Tuesday, June 23rd. Finally, Oppenheimer lifted their price objective on Backblaze from $15.00 to $25.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 4th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Backblaze presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $19.71.

Backblaze Price Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34, a current ratio of 1.00 and a quick ratio of 1.00. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.01 billion, a P/E ratio of -47.76 and a beta of 1.56. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $14.60 and its 200 day moving average price is $8.40.

Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Monday, August 3rd. The company reported $0.08 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.02 by $0.06. The firm had revenue of $42.71 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $39.94 million. Backblaze had a negative return on equity of 16.73% and a negative net margin of 13.07%. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Backblaze, Inc. will post -0.26 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Backblaze

Several institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of BLZE. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. lifted its stake in shares of Backblaze by 8.2% in the 2nd 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 period. Invesco Ltd. lifted its stake in Backblaze by 8.3% in the fourth quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 44,103 shares of the company’s stock valued at $206,000 after buying an additional 3,363 shares during the period. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD boosted its holdings in Backblaze by 12.3% during the fourth quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 32,219 shares of the company’s stock worth $151,000 after buying an additional 3,523 shares during the last quarter. Cerity Partners LLC grew its position in shares of Backblaze by 3.6% during the 2nd quarter. Cerity Partners LLC now owns 109,001 shares of the company’s stock worth $600,000 after buying an additional 3,763 shares during the period. Finally, The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company increased its stake in shares of Backblaze by 31.8% in the 2nd quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 19,292 shares of the company’s stock valued at $106,000 after acquiring an additional 4,650 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.