Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) Rating Increased to Buy at Craig Hallum

Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) was upgraded by analysts at Craig Hallum from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report released on Tuesday,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has a $16.00 target price on the stock, up from their prior target price of $6.50. Craig Hallum’s target price would indicate a potential upside of 44.40% from the company’s current price.

A number of other research analysts also recently issued reports on the stock. William Blair restated an “underperform” rating on shares of Backblaze in a research report on Monday, March 23rd. Loop Capital set a $8.00 price objective on Backblaze in a report on Tuesday, February 24th. Citigroup reissued a “market outperform” rating on shares of Backblaze in a research note on Tuesday, February 24th. Lake Street Capital raised their target price on Backblaze from $8.00 to $11.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, May 5th. Finally, B. Riley Financial upgraded Backblaze to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, April 2nd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, seven have assigned a Buy rating and two have issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Backblaze currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $9.64.

Backblaze Price Performance

Backblaze stock traded up $2.96 during trading hours on Tuesday, hitting $11.08. 21,694,359 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,486,045. The business’s 50-day moving average is $6.63 and its two-hundred day moving average is $5.13. Backblaze has a 12 month low of $3.26 and a 12 month high of $11.11. The stock has a market capitalization of $665.91 million, a P/E ratio of -28.19 and a beta of 1.71. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.28, a quick ratio of 1.05 and a current ratio of 1.05.

Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Monday, May 4th. The company reported $0.04 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.02 by $0.02. Backblaze had a negative net margin of 14.97% and a negative return on equity of 20.54%. The business had revenue of $38.67 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $37.78 million. Equities research analysts expect that Backblaze will post -0.33 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Royal Bank of Canada increased its holdings in shares of Backblaze by 1,388.2% in the fourth quarter. Royal Bank of Canada now owns 5,551 shares of the company’s stock worth $26,000 after acquiring an additional 5,178 shares in the last quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC acquired a new position in shares of Backblaze in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $47,000. Oxford Asset Management LLP acquired a new position in shares of Backblaze in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $47,000. M&T Bank Corp bought a new stake in Backblaze during the 4th quarter worth approximately $49,000. Finally, Occudo Quantitative Strategies LP bought a new stake in Backblaze during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $58,000. 54.03% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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. 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.