BlackBerry Sees Unusually High Options Volume (NYSE:BB)

BlackBerry Limited (NYSE:BB - Get Free Report) was the target of some unusual options trading on Tuesday. Traders bought 56,163 call options on the company. This is an increase of approximately 48% compared to the average volume of 38,012 call options.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages have weighed in on BB. TD Securities raised shares of BlackBerry from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating and lifted their price target for the company from $3.25 to $4.00 in a research report on Friday, December 20th. TD Cowen upgraded BlackBerry from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating and increased their price target for the company from $3.25 to $4.00 in a report on Friday, December 20th. Robert W. Baird boosted their price objective on BlackBerry from $3.00 to $3.50 and gave the stock a "neutral" rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Royal Bank of Canada increased their target price on BlackBerry from $3.25 to $4.00 and gave the company a "sector perform" rating in a research note on Friday, January 10th. Finally, StockNews.com raised BlackBerry from a "sell" rating to a "hold" rating in a research report on Monday, December 9th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company's stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $3.69.

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Insider Activity at BlackBerry

In other news, CAO Jay P. Chai sold 24,425 shares of the company's stock in a transaction on Friday, January 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $4.19, for a total transaction of $102,340.75. The transaction 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 company's stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $3.68, for a total value of $573,399.20. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 385,552 shares of the company's stock, valued at $1,418,831.36. This represents a 28.78 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 244,221 shares of company stock valued at $925,655 over the last quarter. Insiders own 0.34% of the company's stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On BlackBerry

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of BB. Barclays PLC grew its stake in BlackBerry by 60.2% in the third quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 249,218 shares of the company's stock worth $652,000 after purchasing an additional 93,651 shares in the last quarter. Milestone Asset Management LLC bought a new position in BlackBerry during the 4th quarter worth approximately $557,000. Intact Investment Management Inc. grew its position in shares of BlackBerry by 25.7% in the 3rd quarter. Intact Investment Management Inc. now owns 1,439,240 shares of the company's stock worth $3,789,000 after acquiring an additional 294,250 shares in the last quarter. Capstone Investment Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of BlackBerry in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $1,285,000. Finally, Alberta Investment Management Corp raised its position in shares of BlackBerry by 60.5% during the 4th quarter. Alberta Investment Management Corp now owns 644,900 shares of the company's stock valued at $2,448,000 after acquiring an additional 243,000 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 54.48% of the company's stock.

BlackBerry Stock Down 0.7 %

BB traded down $0.04 on Friday, reaching $4.72. The company's stock had a trading volume of 66,533,766 shares, compared to its average volume of 28,392,221. BlackBerry has a 1 year low of $2.01 and a 1 year high of $6.24. The business's 50 day moving average is $4.52 and its 200 day moving average is $3.17. 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 stock has a market cap of $2.81 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -21.43 and a beta of 1.31.

BlackBerry (NYSE:BB - Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The company reported $0.02 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($0.01) by $0.03. The company had revenue of $143.00 million during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $144.84 million. BlackBerry had a negative return on equity of 2.02% and a negative net margin of 21.16%. The business's revenue was down 5.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $0.01 EPS. As a group, research analysts forecast that BlackBerry will post -0.03 EPS for the current fiscal year.

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.