Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE) Short Interest Down 34.4% in January

Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE) saw a large decline in short interest in the month of January. As of January 31st, there was short interest totalling 508,800 shares, a decline of 34.4% from the January 15th total of 776,000 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 394,300 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 1.3 days. Approximately 1.4% of the company’s stock are sold short.

Insider Activity at Backblaze

In related news, VP Tina Cessna sold 8,874 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $6.42, for a total transaction of $56,971.08. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now owns 144,566 shares in the company, valued at approximately $928,113.72. This represents a 5.78 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Gleb Budman sold 10,321 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $6.42, for a total transaction of $66,260.82. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 1,864,646 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $11,971,027.32. The trade was a 0.55 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 5.20% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Backblaze

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its stake in Backblaze by 15.6% in the fourth quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 14,780 shares of the company’s stock valued at $89,000 after purchasing an additional 1,992 shares in the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp raised its stake in Backblaze by 2.6% in the fourth quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 84,440 shares of the company’s stock valued at $508,000 after purchasing an additional 2,105 shares in the last quarter. Verition Fund Management LLC raised its stake in Backblaze by 15.4% in the third quarter. Verition Fund Management LLC now owns 15,800 shares of the company’s stock valued at $101,000 after purchasing an additional 2,106 shares in the last quarter. EntryPoint Capital LLC raised its stake in Backblaze by 20.8% in the fourth quarter. EntryPoint Capital LLC now owns 23,558 shares of the company’s stock valued at $142,000 after purchasing an additional 4,054 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Quantbot Technologies LP raised its stake in Backblaze by 60.6% in the fourth quarter. Quantbot Technologies LP now owns 11,648 shares of the company’s stock valued at $70,000 after purchasing an additional 4,393 shares in the last quarter. 54.03% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on BLZE shares. Raymond James increased their price target on shares of Backblaze from $13.00 to $14.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, November 8th. Craig Hallum increased their price target on shares of Backblaze from $10.00 to $11.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, October 21st.

Backblaze Price Performance

BLZE traded down $0.23 on Friday, reaching $7.25. The company had a trading volume of 269,967 shares, compared to its average volume of 207,993. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $6.48 and a 200 day simple moving average of $6.49. The company has a market cap of $321.90 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -6.53 and a beta of 0.92. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.39, a quick ratio of 0.54 and a current ratio of 0.54. Backblaze has a 52-week low of $4.91 and a 52-week high of $12.65.

Backblaze Company Profile

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.