Blair William & Co. IL Buys 17,500 Shares of Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE)

Blair William & Co. IL boosted its holdings in Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE) by 57.0% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 48,194 shares of the company’s stock after purchasing an additional 17,500 shares during the period. Blair William & Co. IL owned about 0.09% of Backblaze worth $233,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. D. E. Shaw & Co. Inc. grew its position in Backblaze by 302.8% in the fourth quarter. D. E. Shaw & Co. Inc. now owns 115,994 shares of the company’s stock valued at $698,000 after purchasing an additional 87,194 shares in the last quarter. BNP Paribas Financial Markets bought a new position in Backblaze in the fourth quarter valued at $188,000. Jane Street Group LLC grew its position in Backblaze by 106.8% in the fourth quarter. Jane Street Group LLC now owns 51,500 shares of the company’s stock valued at $310,000 after purchasing an additional 26,593 shares in the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp grew its position in Backblaze by 21.5% in the fourth quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 380,538 shares of the company’s stock valued at $2,291,000 after purchasing an additional 67,281 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Bank of America Corp DE grew its position in Backblaze by 53.9% in the fourth quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 51,953 shares of the company’s stock valued at $313,000 after purchasing an additional 18,193 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 54.03% of the company’s stock.

Backblaze Stock Performance

NASDAQ BLZE opened at $7.87 on Wednesday. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $5.49 and a 200-day moving average of $5.52. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24, a quick ratio of 1.08 and a current ratio of 1.08. The stock has a market cap of $432.06 million, a PE ratio of -8.84 and a beta of 1.13. Backblaze, Inc. has a 52-week low of $3.94 and a 52-week high of $8.08.

Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, August 7th. The company reported ($0.12) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.05) by ($0.07). The company had revenue of $36.30 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $35.41 million. Backblaze had a negative return on equity of 54.88% and a negative net margin of 31.72%. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Backblaze, Inc. will post -1.02 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms recently weighed in on BLZE. JMP Securities raised their target price on shares of Backblaze from $7.00 to $8.00 and gave the company a “market outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, August 8th. Citizens Jmp began coverage on shares of Backblaze in a research report on Tuesday, June 24th. They issued a “strong-buy” rating and a $7.00 target price for the company. Finally, Needham & Company LLC lifted their price objective on shares of Backblaze from $7.00 to $8.50 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 7th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Backblaze currently has an average rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $10.07.

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.