Traders Purchase High Volume of BlackBerry Call Options (NYSE:BB)

BlackBerry Limited (NYSE:BB) was the recipient of some unusual options trading on Tuesday. Stock investors purchased 32,499 call options on the stock. This represents an increase of approximately 56% compared to the typical daily volume of 20,876 call options.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Royal Bank of Canada increased their price target on shares of BlackBerry from $3.00 to $3.25 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a report on Tuesday. StockNews.com raised shares of BlackBerry from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, December 9th. Canaccord Genuity Group upped their price objective on BlackBerry from $2.70 to $2.80 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, October 18th. Finally, CIBC raised their price objective on BlackBerry from $3.50 to $3.60 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 17th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, one has issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, BlackBerry presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $3.26.

BlackBerry Price Performance

BB opened at $3.20 on Wednesday. The firm has a market cap of $1.89 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -12.76 and a beta of 1.43. BlackBerry has a fifty-two week low of $2.01 and a fifty-two week high of $4.36. The company has a quick ratio of 1.44, a current ratio of 1.44 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $2.49 and its 200 day moving average price is $2.44.

BlackBerry (NYSE:BB) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, September 26th. The company reported ($0.01) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of ($0.03) by $0.02. The business had revenue of $145.00 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $138.82 million. BlackBerry had a negative return on equity of 3.38% and a negative net margin of 21.66%. The business’s revenue was up 9.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted ($0.06) earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that BlackBerry will post -0.06 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at BlackBerry

In related news, insider Philip S. Kurtz sold 15,005 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Saturday, September 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $2.53, for a total transaction of $37,962.65. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 30,129 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $76,226.37. This represents a 33.25 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. 0.34% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Barclays PLC boosted its position in BlackBerry by 60.2% during the third quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 249,218 shares of the company’s stock valued at $652,000 after purchasing an additional 93,651 shares during 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 acquiring an additional 36,372 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its stake in BlackBerry by 2.9% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 267,073 shares of the company’s stock valued at $706,000 after acquiring an additional 7,652 shares during the period. Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio acquired a new position in shares of BlackBerry in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $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 in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 54.48% of the company’s stock.

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.