BlackLine (NASDAQ:BL) Cut to Hold at StockNews.com

StockNews.com downgraded shares of BlackLine (NASDAQ:BL) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research report report published on Wednesday morning.

BL has been the subject of several other reports. Bank of America upgraded BlackLine from an “underperform” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price objective for the stock from $50.00 to $75.00 in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. Piper Sandler dropped their price objective on BlackLine from $60.00 to $58.00 and set an “underweight” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, February 12th. JMP Securities reaffirmed a “market outperform” rating and issued a $86.00 target price on shares of BlackLine in a report on Wednesday, January 15th. Citigroup lowered their target price on BlackLine from $73.00 to $70.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, February 12th. Finally, Morgan Stanley upped their target price on BlackLine from $70.00 to $80.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, November 15th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, five have assigned a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, BlackLine currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $66.40.

BlackLine Stock Performance

NASDAQ:BL opened at $48.30 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.00, a quick ratio of 2.69 and a current ratio of 2.59. BlackLine has a fifty-two week low of $43.37 and a fifty-two week high of $69.31. The company has a market cap of $3.03 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.31, a PEG ratio of 10.80 and a beta of 0.92. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $58.59 and a 200-day moving average price of $56.91.

BlackLine (NASDAQ:BL) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 11th. The technology company reported $0.21 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.50 by ($0.29). BlackLine had a return on equity of 21.63% and a net margin of 24.67%. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that BlackLine will post 0.9 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity

In related news, CRO Mark Woodhams sold 9,088 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $49.67, for a total transaction of $451,400.96. Following the sale, the executive now owns 65,414 shares in the company, valued at $3,249,113.38. This represents a 12.20 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Insiders own 9.93% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On BlackLine

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. FMR LLC boosted its position in shares of BlackLine by 1.3% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 5,153,275 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $284,152,000 after purchasing an additional 64,435 shares in the last quarter. Conestoga Capital Advisors LLC boosted its position in shares of BlackLine by 20.2% during the 4th quarter. Conestoga Capital Advisors LLC now owns 2,113,882 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $128,439,000 after purchasing an additional 354,784 shares in the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted its holdings in BlackLine by 35.3% in the third quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 1,666,591 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $91,896,000 after acquiring an additional 435,271 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in BlackLine by 0.3% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,282,017 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $70,704,000 after acquiring an additional 3,498 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Topline Capital Management LLC bought a new position in BlackLine in the fourth quarter worth approximately $60,572,000. Institutional investors own 95.13% of the company’s stock.

About BlackLine

BlackLine, Inc operates a cloud-based software platform which is designed to transform accounting and finance operations for organizations of all types and sizes. Its scalable platform supports critical accounting processes such as the financial close, account reconciliations, intercompany accounting, and controls assurance.