BlackLine, Inc. (NASDAQ:BL) Short Interest Down 6.6% in September

BlackLine, Inc. (NASDAQ:BL) was the target of a significant decline in short interest in September. As of September 15th, there was short interest totalling 4,390,000 shares, a decline of 6.6% from the August 31st total of 4,700,000 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 877,900 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 5.0 days. Approximately 8.6% of the shares of the stock are sold short.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

BL has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. Citigroup lowered their price target on BlackLine from $62.00 to $54.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, June 28th. JMP Securities reissued a “market outperform” rating and set a $81.00 price objective on shares of BlackLine in a research note on Monday, July 15th. Truist Financial lowered their price objective on BlackLine from $60.00 to $45.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, August 7th. BTIG Research lowered their price objective on BlackLine from $71.00 to $65.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, August 7th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price objective on BlackLine from $50.00 to $47.00 and set an “underweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, August 7th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $58.78.

Insider Activity

In other news, insider Karole Morgan-Prager sold 10,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $50.00, for a total value of $500,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 115,424 shares in the company, valued at $5,771,200. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. In other news, insider Karole Morgan-Prager sold 10,000 shares of BlackLine stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $50.00, for a total value of $500,000.00. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 115,424 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,771,200. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CRO Mark Woodhams sold 1,387 shares of BlackLine stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $51.70, for a total value of $71,707.90. Following the completion of the sale, the executive now directly owns 97,582 shares in the company, valued at $5,044,989.40. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 16,765 shares of company stock worth $851,418 over the last three months. 9.93% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On BlackLine

Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of BL. Quadrature Capital Ltd increased its holdings in shares of BlackLine by 346.5% in the 1st quarter. Quadrature Capital Ltd now owns 31,846 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $2,055,000 after acquiring an additional 24,713 shares during the last quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers purchased a new position in shares of BlackLine in the 1st quarter valued at about $1,572,000. Comerica Bank increased its holdings in shares of BlackLine by 11.8% in the 1st quarter. Comerica Bank now owns 124,266 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $8,025,000 after acquiring an additional 13,066 shares during the last quarter. State of Alaska Department of Revenue purchased a new position in shares of BlackLine in the 1st quarter valued at about $2,000,000. Finally, Teachers Retirement System of The State of Kentucky purchased a new position in shares of BlackLine in the 1st quarter valued at about $907,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 95.13% of the company’s stock.

BlackLine Stock Performance

Shares of BlackLine stock opened at $52.85 on Monday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.95, a current ratio of 1.95 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.74. The firm has a market cap of $3.27 billion, a PE ratio of 229.78, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 12.80 and a beta of 0.89. BlackLine has a 52 week low of $43.37 and a 52 week high of $69.31. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $49.50 and its 200-day simple moving average is $52.93.

BlackLine (NASDAQ:BL) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, August 6th. The technology company reported $0.58 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.50 by $0.08. The firm had revenue of $160.51 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $158.21 million. BlackLine had a return on equity of 33.96% and a net margin of 19.46%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 11.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned ($0.69) EPS. Equities analysts forecast that BlackLine will post 0.94 earnings per share for the current year.

BlackLine Company Profile

BlackLine, Inc provides cloud-based solutions to automate and streamline accounting and finance operations worldwide. It offers financial close management solutions, such as account reconciliations that provides a centralized workspace for users to collaborate on account reconciliations; transaction matching that analyzes and reconciles individual transactions; task management to create and manage processes and task lists; and financial reporting analytics that enables analysis and validation of financial data.