Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE) Sees Significant Growth in Short Interest

Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE) saw a large increase in short interest during the month of June. As of June 15th, there was short interest totalling 703,900 shares, an increase of 51.5% from the May 31st total of 464,700 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 299,900 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 2.3 days. Approximately 2.5% of the shares of the company are short sold.

Backblaze Trading Up 1.8 %

Backblaze stock traded up $0.11 during trading on Friday, hitting $6.16. The company had a trading volume of 5,719,761 shares, compared to its average volume of 277,848. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $7.16 and its 200-day simple moving average is $8.42. The stock has a market cap of $255.64 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -4.34 and a beta of 1.02. The company has a current ratio of 0.70, a quick ratio of 0.70 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34. Backblaze has a 1-year low of $3.82 and a 1-year high of $12.65.

Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, May 8th. The company reported ($0.27) EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.31) by $0.04. The firm 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%. As a group, analysts expect that Backblaze will post -1.09 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Backblaze news, CFO Francis P. Patchel sold 10,328 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, May 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $6.45, for a total transaction of $66,615.60. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 162,653 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,049,111.85. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 20,058 shares of company stock valued at $131,703. Insiders own 5.20% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Backblaze

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. grew its position in Backblaze by 193.4% during the third quarter. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. now owns 72,562 shares of the company’s stock worth $399,000 after buying an additional 47,834 shares during the period. Kent Lake Capital LLC purchased a new position in shares of Backblaze during the third quarter valued at approximately $423,000. Citigroup Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Backblaze during the third quarter valued at approximately $324,000. Cutler Group LLC CA lifted its stake in shares of Backblaze by 553.0% during the fourth quarter. Cutler Group LLC CA now owns 3,918 shares of the company’s stock valued at $29,000 after buying an additional 3,318 shares during the period. Finally, AJOVista LLC purchased a new position in shares of Backblaze during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $67,000. 54.03% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Separately, Oppenheimer boosted their price target on shares of Backblaze from $11.00 to $13.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 17th.

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.