The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company Invests $102,000 in Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE)

The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company bought a new stake in Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE) during the second quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The firm bought 16,574 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $102,000.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of BLZE. Essex Investment Management Co. LLC acquired a new position in Backblaze in the first quarter valued at $2,048,000. First Eagle Investment Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Backblaze by 10.2% in the 1st quarter. First Eagle Investment Management LLC now owns 726,990 shares of the company’s stock valued at $7,437,000 after purchasing an additional 67,475 shares during the period. Acadian Asset Management LLC grew its stake in Backblaze by 117.0% during the 1st quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 689,599 shares of the company’s stock worth $7,052,000 after buying an additional 371,851 shares during the last quarter. Hillsdale Investment Management Inc. acquired a new position in Backblaze during the first quarter worth approximately $154,000. Finally, Quadrature Capital Ltd purchased a new stake in Backblaze in the first quarter valued at approximately $643,000. 54.03% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Backblaze Stock Performance

NASDAQ:BLZE opened at $7.34 on Monday. The firm has a market cap of $304.61 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -5.17 and a beta of 1.02. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34, a current ratio of 0.61 and a quick ratio of 0.61. Backblaze, Inc. has a 1-year low of $4.80 and a 1-year high of $12.65. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $6.34 and its 200 day moving average price is $6.89.

Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, August 8th. The company reported ($0.25) earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.12) by ($0.13). The firm had revenue of $31.29 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $30.93 million. Backblaze had a negative net margin of 42.34% and a negative return on equity of 104.71%. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned ($0.38) EPS. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Backblaze, Inc. will post -0.99 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts have recently issued reports on BLZE shares. Oppenheimer lowered their target price on shares of Backblaze from $11.00 to $10.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, August 9th. Craig Hallum lifted their price objective on shares of Backblaze from $9.00 to $10.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, August 9th.

Insider Activity at Backblaze

In other Backblaze news, VP Tina Cessna sold 3,894 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, August 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $6.45, for a total value of $25,116.30. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now owns 153,440 shares in the company, valued at approximately $989,688. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. In other news, Director Barbara H. Nelson sold 16,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $6.79, for a total transaction of $108,640.00. Following the sale, the director now owns 62,346 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $423,329.34. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, VP Tina Cessna sold 3,894 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $6.45, for a total value of $25,116.30. Following the completion of the sale, the vice president now owns 153,440 shares in the company, valued at approximately $989,688. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 47,483 shares of company stock worth $311,530 over the last three months. 5.20% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

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.