Short Interest in BlackLine, Inc. (NASDAQ:BL) Grows By 7.3%

BlackLine, Inc. (NASDAQ:BL) was the recipient of a significant increase in short interest during the month of September. As of September 30th, there was short interest totalling 4,710,000 shares, an increase of 7.3% from the September 15th total of 4,390,000 shares. Approximately 9.2% of the company’s shares are sold short. Based on an average trading volume of 773,500 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 6.1 days.

Insider Activity

In other news, CFO Mark Partin sold 5,648 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, September 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $53.00, for a total transaction of $299,344.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 226,844 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $12,022,732. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. In related news, CFO Mark Partin sold 5,648 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, September 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $53.00, for a total value of $299,344.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 226,844 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $12,022,732. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, insider Karole Morgan-Prager sold 10,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $50.00, for a total transaction of $500,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 115,424 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,771,200. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 123,794 shares of company stock valued at $6,713,879. Insiders own 9.93% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On BlackLine

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of BlackLine by 9.5% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 7,380,961 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $476,662,000 after acquiring an additional 642,772 shares during the last quarter. Squarepoint Ops LLC purchased a new position in shares of BlackLine during the 2nd quarter worth $15,128,000. Principal Financial Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of BlackLine by 3,945.7% during the 1st quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 265,845 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $17,168,000 after acquiring an additional 259,274 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its stake in shares of BlackLine by 65.4% during the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 579,481 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $28,076,000 after acquiring an additional 229,151 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Clearline Capital LP purchased a new position in shares of BlackLine during the 2nd quarter worth $7,673,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 95.13% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts recently issued reports on BL shares. Truist Financial decreased their price target on shares of BlackLine from $60.00 to $45.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, August 7th. Piper Sandler decreased their target price on shares of BlackLine from $55.00 to $51.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, August 7th. Morgan Stanley raised shares of BlackLine from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their target price for the company from $60.00 to $70.00 in a research note on Monday, September 30th. Robert W. Baird decreased their target price on shares of BlackLine from $72.00 to $65.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, August 7th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their target price on shares of BlackLine from $50.00 to $47.00 and set an “underweight” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, August 7th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have given a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, BlackLine currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $59.90.

BlackLine Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:BL remained flat at $58.29 during trading on Thursday. 92,978 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 904,299. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $51.73 and its 200-day moving average price is $52.22. BlackLine has a 1 year low of $43.37 and a 1 year high of $69.31. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.74, a quick ratio of 1.95 and a current ratio of 1.95. The company has a market capitalization of $3.60 billion, a PE ratio of 253.43, a P/E/G ratio of 13.57 and a beta of 0.90.

BlackLine (NASDAQ:BL) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, August 6th. The technology company reported $0.58 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.50 by $0.08. BlackLine had a net margin of 19.46% and a return on equity of 33.96%. The company had revenue of $160.51 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $158.21 million. During the same quarter last year, the company posted ($0.69) earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 11.0% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts expect that BlackLine will post 0.96 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.