BlackBerry (NYSE:BB) Shares Gap Up – Here’s What Happened

BlackBerry Limited (NYSE:BB) shares gapped up prior to trading on Friday . The stock had previously closed at $4.41, but opened at $4.52. BlackBerry shares last traded at $4.51, with a volume of 1,168,745 shares traded.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts recently issued reports on the company. Royal Bank of Canada raised their price target on BlackBerry from $3.25 to $4.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Friday, January 10th. TD Securities upgraded BlackBerry from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price target for the stock from $3.25 to $4.00 in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Canaccord Genuity Group raised their price target on BlackBerry from $2.80 to $3.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. StockNews.com upgraded BlackBerry from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, December 9th. Finally, TD Cowen upgraded BlackBerry from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $3.25 to $4.00 in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, BlackBerry has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $3.69.

BlackBerry Stock Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27, a current ratio of 1.37 and a quick ratio of 1.37. The firm has a market cap of $2.70 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -20.57 and a beta of 1.27. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $4.59 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $3.27.

BlackBerry (NYSE:BB) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The company reported $0.02 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.01) by $0.03. The firm had revenue of $143.00 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $144.84 million. BlackBerry had a negative return on equity of 2.02% and a negative net margin of 21.16%. BlackBerry’s revenue for the quarter was down 5.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $0.01 earnings per share. On average, analysts expect that BlackBerry Limited will post -0.03 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at BlackBerry

In other BlackBerry news, CAO Jay P. Chai sold 24,425 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $4.19, for a total value of $102,340.75. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO John Joseph Giamatteo sold 155,815 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $3.68, for a total value of $573,399.20. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 385,552 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,418,831.36. The trade was a 28.78 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 244,221 shares of company stock valued at $925,655. 0.34% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC raised its stake in BlackBerry by 63.9% in the 4th quarter. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC now owns 9,773 shares of the company’s stock valued at $37,000 after purchasing an additional 3,811 shares during the last quarter. Masso Torrence Wealth Management Inc. purchased a new stake in BlackBerry in the 4th quarter valued at $38,000. Mindset Wealth Management LLC purchased a new stake in BlackBerry in the 4th quarter valued at $38,000. Quadrant Capital Group LLC grew its holdings in BlackBerry by 100.3% in the 4th quarter. Quadrant Capital Group LLC now owns 10,000 shares of the company’s stock valued at $38,000 after buying an additional 5,008 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Sanctuary Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in BlackBerry in the 4th quarter valued at $40,000. 54.48% of the stock is 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.