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

BlackBerry Limited (NYSE:BB) was the recipient of unusually large options trading on Wednesday. Traders bought 78,445 call options on the company. This represents an increase of approximately 143% compared to the typical volume of 32,257 call options.

Insider Activity at BlackBerry

In other BlackBerry news, CEO John Joseph Giamatteo sold 155,815 shares of BlackBerry 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 completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 385,552 shares in the company, valued at $1,418,831.36. The trade was a 28.78 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CAO Jay P. Chai sold 24,425 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $4.19, for a total transaction of $102,340.75. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 244,221 shares of company stock valued at $925,655. 0.34% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On BlackBerry

Several institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in BB. EdgePoint Investment Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of BlackBerry by 15.9% during the third quarter. EdgePoint Investment Group Inc. now owns 11,922,795 shares of the company’s stock worth $31,238,000 after buying an additional 1,637,916 shares during the period. Millennium Management LLC boosted its position in BlackBerry by 5,408.9% during the 2nd quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 3,431,588 shares of the company’s stock worth $8,510,000 after acquiring an additional 3,369,296 shares during the period. Intact Investment Management Inc. grew its stake in shares of BlackBerry by 25.7% in the third quarter. Intact Investment Management Inc. now owns 1,439,240 shares of the company’s stock worth $3,789,000 after purchasing an additional 294,250 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its holdings in shares of BlackBerry by 1.9% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 1,309,606 shares of the company’s stock valued at $3,431,000 after purchasing an additional 24,309 shares during the period. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its stake in shares of BlackBerry by 1.0% during the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 1,212,230 shares of the company’s stock valued at $3,194,000 after purchasing an additional 11,899 shares in the last quarter. 54.48% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

BB has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. CIBC lifted their price target on shares of BlackBerry from $3.50 to $3.60 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 17th. TD Cowen raised shares of BlackBerry from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price target for the stock from $3.25 to $4.00 in a research report on Friday, December 20th. StockNews.com raised BlackBerry from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, December 9th. Canaccord Genuity Group upped their target price on BlackBerry from $2.80 to $3.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, TD Securities upgraded 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 report on Friday, December 20th. Six investment 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. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $3.69.

BlackBerry Stock Up 9.6 %

BB stock traded up $0.45 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $5.07. 28,185,864 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 20,668,205. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $3.61 and a 200 day simple moving average of $2.81. The company has a market capitalization of $3.00 billion, a PE ratio of -23.02 and a beta of 1.31. BlackBerry has a twelve month low of $2.01 and a twelve month high of $5.09. The company has a current ratio of 1.37, a quick ratio of 1.37 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27.

BlackBerry (NYSE:BB) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The company reported $0.02 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.01) by $0.03. BlackBerry had a negative net margin of 21.16% and a negative return on equity of 2.02%. The firm had revenue of $143.00 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $144.84 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.01 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was down 5.9% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts forecast that BlackBerry will post -0.03 earnings per share 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.