BlackBerry Sees Unusually High Options Volume (NYSE:BB)

BlackBerry Limited (NYSE:BB) was the recipient of unusually large options trading on Tuesday. Stock traders acquired 39,126 call options on the stock. This represents an increase of 39% compared to the average volume of 28,118 call options.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, insider Mattias Eriksson sold 14,475 shares of BlackBerry stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $3.68, for a total value of $53,268.00. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 238,838 shares in the company, valued at approximately $878,923.84. This trade represents a 5.71 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO John Joseph Giamatteo sold 155,815 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $3.68, for a total value of $573,399.20. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 385,552 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,418,831.36. This trade represents a 28.78 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders have sold 174,913 shares of company stock worth $643,741. 0.34% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of BlackBerry

Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Barclays PLC raised its position in shares of BlackBerry by 60.2% during the 3rd quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 249,218 shares of the company’s stock valued at $652,000 after acquiring an additional 93,651 shares in the last quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank lifted its position in shares of BlackBerry by 5.3% in the 3rd quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank now owns 718,314 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,882,000 after buying an additional 36,372 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of BlackBerry by 2.9% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 267,073 shares of the company’s stock valued at $706,000 after buying an additional 7,652 shares during the period. Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio bought a new stake in shares of BlackBerry during the 3rd quarter valued at about $410,000. Finally, Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC raised its stake in BlackBerry by 121.1% during the third quarter. Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC now owns 37,916 shares of the company’s stock worth $99,000 after acquiring an additional 20,771 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 54.48% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Canaccord Genuity Group boosted their target price on BlackBerry from $2.80 to $3.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. TD Securities upgraded shares of 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 research note on Friday, December 20th. TD Cowen raised shares of BlackBerry from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their target price for the company from $3.25 to $4.00 in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Royal Bank of Canada upped their price target on shares of BlackBerry from $3.00 to $3.25 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, December 17th. Finally, StockNews.com raised BlackBerry from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, December 9th. Six equities 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 company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $3.60.

BlackBerry Stock Performance

Shares of BB stock opened at $4.07 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27, a current ratio of 1.44 and a quick ratio of 1.44. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $2.89 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $2.57. The firm has a market capitalization of $2.41 billion, a P/E ratio of -16.28 and a beta of 1.30. BlackBerry has a 12 month low of $2.01 and a 12 month high of $4.35.

BlackBerry (NYSE:BB) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The company reported $0.02 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of ($0.01) by $0.03. BlackBerry had a negative return on equity of 3.38% and a negative net margin of 21.66%. The business had revenue of $143.00 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $144.84 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.01 earnings per share. The company’s revenue was down 5.9% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts anticipate that BlackBerry will post -0.06 earnings per share 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.