BlackBerry Limited (NYSE:BB) Short Interest Up 26.1% in June

BlackBerry Limited (NYSE:BB) was the target of a significant increase in short interest in the month of June. As of June 15th, there was short interest totalling 51,990,000 shares, an increase of 26.1% from the May 31st total of 41,220,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 11,140,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 4.7 days. Approximately 9.0% of the shares of the company are sold short.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts recently weighed in on the company. Cibc World Mkts raised BlackBerry from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Thursday, June 27th. Raymond James lowered their target price on shares of BlackBerry from $5.50 to $4.75 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a report on Friday. CIBC raised shares of BlackBerry from a “neutral” rating to a “sector outperform” rating and set a $3.50 price target for the company in a report on Thursday, June 27th. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed a “sector perform” rating and issued a $3.00 price objective on shares of BlackBerry in a report on Thursday, June 27th. Finally, Canaccord Genuity Group dropped their target price on BlackBerry from $3.25 to $2.70 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, June 27th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have issued a hold rating, one has issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $3.20.

Institutional Trading of BlackBerry

A number of institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. EdgePoint Investment Group Inc. increased its position in shares of BlackBerry by 25.6% in the first quarter. EdgePoint Investment Group Inc. now owns 12,443,225 shares of the company’s stock valued at $34,343,000 after buying an additional 2,536,966 shares in the last quarter. CANADA LIFE ASSURANCE Co grew its stake in BlackBerry by 132.4% in the 1st quarter. CANADA LIFE ASSURANCE Co now owns 6,069,593 shares of the company’s stock valued at $16,631,000 after acquiring an additional 3,458,275 shares during the last quarter. FIFTHDELTA Ltd increased its holdings in BlackBerry by 2.3% during the 1st quarter. FIFTHDELTA Ltd now owns 31,499,858 shares of the company’s stock valued at $86,940,000 after acquiring an additional 710,015 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings in BlackBerry by 0.8% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 19,505,300 shares of the company’s stock valued at $53,835,000 after acquiring an additional 149,444 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Headlands Technologies LLC raised its position in BlackBerry by 1,938.9% during the first quarter. Headlands Technologies LLC now owns 334,152 shares of the company’s stock worth $922,000 after acquiring an additional 317,763 shares during the last quarter. 54.48% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

BlackBerry Stock Performance

BB stock opened at $2.43 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.26, a current ratio of 1.43 and a quick ratio of 1.43. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $2.75 and its 200 day moving average price is $2.93. BlackBerry has a 52 week low of $2.20 and a 52 week high of $5.75.

BlackBerry (NYSE:BB) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, June 26th. The company reported ($0.03) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.04) by $0.01. The company had revenue of $144.00 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $132.05 million. BlackBerry had a negative net margin of 25.80% and a negative return on equity of 6.43%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 61.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the firm earned $0.04 EPS. On average, equities analysts expect that BlackBerry will post -0.09 EPS for the current fiscal year.

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.