BlackBerry Target of Unusually Large Options Trading (NYSE:BB)

BlackBerry Limited (NYSE:BB) was the target of unusually large options trading activity on Tuesday. Stock investors purchased 56,163 call options on the company. This is an increase of 48% compared to the average daily volume of 38,012 call options.

BlackBerry Price Performance

Shares of NYSE BB opened at $4.91 on Wednesday. BlackBerry has a fifty-two week low of $2.01 and a fifty-two week high of $6.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27, a quick ratio of 1.37 and a current ratio of 1.37. The company has a market capitalization of $2.92 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -22.30 and a beta of 1.31. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $4.44 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $3.15.

BlackBerry (NYSE:BB) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The company reported $0.02 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.01) by $0.03. The business had revenue of $143.00 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $144.84 million. BlackBerry had a negative net margin of 21.16% and a negative return on equity of 2.02%. BlackBerry’s revenue was down 5.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business earned $0.01 EPS. Analysts expect that BlackBerry will post -0.03 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CAO Jay P. Chai sold 24,425 shares of BlackBerry stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $4.19, for a total value of $102,340.75. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider Mattias Eriksson sold 12,680 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, January 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $4.00, for a total value of $50,720.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 278,306 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,113,224. The trade was a 4.36 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 244,221 shares of company stock valued at $925,655. Corporate insiders own 0.34% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On BlackBerry

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Hood River Capital Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of BlackBerry in the fourth quarter worth approximately $53,267,000. Legal & General Group Plc boosted its holdings in shares of BlackBerry by 19.9% during the 4th quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 33,185,748 shares of the company’s stock valued at $125,987,000 after purchasing an additional 5,518,216 shares during the last quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC bought a new position in BlackBerry during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $19,485,000. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. grew its holdings in shares of BlackBerry by 41.9% in the fourth quarter. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. now owns 13,669,715 shares of the company’s stock valued at $51,856,000 after purchasing an additional 4,039,483 shares in the last quarter. Finally, NewGen Asset Management Ltd purchased a new position in shares of BlackBerry in the 4th quarter worth $14,282,000. 54.48% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms recently weighed in on BB. Canaccord Genuity Group lifted their price objective on shares of BlackBerry from $2.80 to $3.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. TD Securities raised BlackBerry from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $3.25 to $4.00 in a report on Friday, December 20th. Robert W. Baird increased their target price on BlackBerry from $3.00 to $3.50 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. TD Cowen raised shares of BlackBerry from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price target for the stock from $3.25 to $4.00 in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada boosted their price target on shares of BlackBerry from $3.25 to $4.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 10th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $3.69.

About BlackBerry

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.