Los Angeles Capital Management LLC Takes $944,000 Position in Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE)

Los Angeles Capital Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE) in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund bought 147,797 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $944,000.

Several other large investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company bought a new stake in Backblaze during the 2nd quarter worth about $102,000. SG Americas Securities LLC grew its position in shares of Backblaze by 84.1% during the 2nd quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 21,283 shares of the company’s stock worth $131,000 after buying an additional 9,720 shares during the period. Hillsdale Investment Management Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Backblaze during the 1st quarter worth approximately $154,000. Tempus Wealth Planning LLC bought a new stake in shares of Backblaze during the third quarter worth approximately $157,000. Finally, Lazard Asset Management LLC lifted its holdings in Backblaze by 165.7% in the first quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC now owns 18,102 shares of the company’s stock valued at $185,000 after buying an additional 11,289 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 54.03% of the company’s stock.

Backblaze Stock Down 4.3 %

Shares of NASDAQ:BLZE opened at $6.28 on Friday. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $6.73 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $6.61. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.39, a quick ratio of 0.54 and a current ratio of 0.54. The company has a market capitalization of $269.41 million, a PE ratio of -5.66 and a beta of 0.99. Backblaze, Inc. has a 52 week low of $4.91 and a 52 week high of $12.65.

Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 7th. The company reported ($0.29) EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.11) by ($0.18). The firm had revenue of $32.59 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $32.54 million. Backblaze had a negative net margin of 37.13% and a negative return on equity of 100.67%. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned ($0.43) EPS. Analysts forecast that Backblaze, Inc. will post -0.99 earnings per share for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms have commented on BLZE. Oppenheimer lowered their target price on shares of Backblaze from $11.00 to $10.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Friday, August 9th. Raymond James lifted their price objective on Backblaze from $13.00 to $14.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, November 8th. Finally, Craig Hallum increased their target price on Backblaze from $10.00 to $11.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, October 21st.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CFO Francis P. Patchel sold 13,107 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, August 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $6.55, for a total transaction of $85,850.85. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 159,116 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,042,209.80. This represents a 7.61 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Gleb Budman sold 4,527 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, August 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $6.45, for a total transaction of $29,199.15. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 1,874,967 shares in the company, valued at approximately $12,093,537.15. The trade was a 0.24 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 31,483 shares of company stock worth $202,890 over the last ninety days. 5.20% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

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.