BlackBerry Sees Unusually High Options Volume (NYSE:BB)

BlackBerry Limited (NYSE:BB) saw unusually large options trading activity on Wednesday. Traders purchased 59,590 call options on the stock. This represents an increase of approximately 80% compared to the average volume of 33,115 call options.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Separately, Royal Bank of Canada reissued a “sector perform” rating and issued a $3.00 target price on shares of BlackBerry in a research note on Thursday, April 4th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating and six have assigned a hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $4.08.

BlackBerry Price Performance

Shares of BB stock opened at $2.21 on Thursday. BlackBerry has a 1 year low of $2.20 and a 1 year high of $5.75. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $2.77 and its 200-day moving average is $2.97. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.30 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -9.21 and a beta of 1.37. The company has a current ratio of 1.43, a quick ratio of 1.43 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.25.

BlackBerry (NYSE:BB) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, June 26th. The company reported ($0.03) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.04) by $0.01. BlackBerry had a negative net margin of 15.24% and a negative return on equity of 0.24%. The company had revenue of $144.00 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $132.05 million. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $0.04 earnings per share. BlackBerry’s quarterly revenue was down 61.4% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts forecast that BlackBerry will post -0.09 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On BlackBerry

Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of BB. First Trust Advisors LP increased its stake in BlackBerry by 70.1% in the fourth quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 33,801,506 shares of the company’s stock valued at $119,657,000 after purchasing an additional 13,925,510 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of BlackBerry during the 4th quarter worth about $48,775,000. Hawk Ridge Capital Management LP acquired a new stake in shares of BlackBerry during the 3rd quarter worth about $21,316,000. CANADA LIFE ASSURANCE Co lifted its stake in shares of BlackBerry by 132.4% during the 1st quarter. CANADA LIFE ASSURANCE Co now owns 6,069,593 shares of the company’s stock worth $16,631,000 after buying an additional 3,458,275 shares during the last quarter. Finally, EdgePoint Investment Group Inc. raised its stake in BlackBerry by 25.6% in the 1st quarter. EdgePoint Investment Group Inc. now owns 12,443,225 shares of the company’s stock worth $34,343,000 after purchasing an additional 2,536,966 shares in the last quarter. 54.48% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

BlackBerry Company Profile

BlackBerry Limited provides intelligent security software and services to enterprises and governments worldwide. The company operates through three segments: Cybersecurity, IoT, and Licensing and Other. The company offers CylanceENDPOINT, an integrated endpoint security solution; CylanceGUARD, a managed detection and response solution; CylanceEDGE, an AI-powered continuous authentication zero trust network access solution; CylanceINTELLIGENCE, a contextual cyber threat intelligence service; BlackBerry Dynamics offers a development platform and secure container for mobile applications; BlackBerry Workspaces a secure Enterprise File Sync and Share (EFSS) solution; BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) Enterprise, an enterprise-grade secure instant messaging solution for messaging, voice and video; BlackBerry SecuSUITE is a certified, multi-OS voice and text messaging solution; BlackBerry AtHoc, a secure networked critical event management solution; and BlackBerry unified endpoint management (UEM) solutions.