BlackLine (NASDAQ:BL) Shares Gap Up – Still a Buy?

Shares of BlackLine, Inc. (NASDAQ:BL) gapped up before the market opened on Tuesday . The stock had previously closed at $57.96, but opened at $59.46. BlackLine shares last traded at $58.72, with a volume of 32,505 shares traded.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have recently commented on BL. Truist Financial boosted their price objective on BlackLine from $55.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, November 11th. Robert W. Baird cut their price target on shares of BlackLine from $72.00 to $65.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, August 7th. Piper Sandler boosted their target price on shares of BlackLine from $51.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, November 8th. BTIG Research decreased their price target on shares of BlackLine from $71.00 to $65.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, August 7th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price objective on BlackLine from $47.00 to $50.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a research report on Friday, October 25th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have assigned a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, BlackLine has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $63.60.

BlackLine Stock Down 0.0 %

The firm has a 50-day moving average of $55.16 and a two-hundred day moving average of $51.66. The company has a quick ratio of 2.69, a current ratio of 2.69 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.42. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.62 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 59.14, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 13.95 and a beta of 0.90.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CFO Mark Partin sold 85,308 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, September 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $54.84, for a total transaction of $4,678,290.72. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 226,844 shares in the company, valued at approximately $12,440,124.96. This trade represents a 27.33 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, insider Karole Morgan-Prager sold 27,079 shares of BlackLine stock in a transaction on Friday, October 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $60.06, for a total transaction of $1,626,364.74. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 113,865 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $6,838,731.90. The trade was a 19.21 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 135,495 shares of company stock worth $7,560,534 in the last quarter. 9.53% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of BlackLine

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in BL. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in BlackLine by 0.3% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,282,017 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $70,704,000 after purchasing an additional 3,498 shares during the period. Y Intercept Hong Kong Ltd bought a new stake in BlackLine in the third quarter valued at about $713,000. Pier Capital LLC grew its stake in shares of BlackLine by 1.3% in the 3rd quarter. Pier Capital LLC now owns 151,726 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $8,366,000 after purchasing an additional 1,909 shares during the period. XTX Topco Ltd bought a new position in shares of BlackLine during the third quarter valued at $1,099,000. Finally, Weiss Asset Management LP acquired a new position in BlackLine in the third quarter valued at about $1,506,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 95.13% of the company’s stock.

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.