Stock Traders Buy High Volume of Call Options on BlackBerry (NYSE:BB)

BlackBerry Limited (NYSE:BB) was the recipient of unusually large options trading on Friday. Investors bought 32,362 call options on the company. This represents an increase of 31% compared to the typical volume of 24,701 call options.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On BlackBerry

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. First Trust Advisors LP boosted its stake in BlackBerry by 70.1% in the 4th quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 33,801,506 shares of the company’s stock valued at $119,657,000 after buying an additional 13,925,510 shares in the last quarter. CANADA LIFE ASSURANCE Co boosted its stake in shares of 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 purchasing an additional 3,458,275 shares in the last quarter. Millennium Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of BlackBerry by 5,408.9% in the 2nd quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 3,431,588 shares of the company’s stock worth $8,510,000 after purchasing an additional 3,369,296 shares during the last quarter. EdgePoint Investment Group Inc. increased its position in shares of BlackBerry by 25.6% during the 1st quarter. EdgePoint Investment Group Inc. now owns 12,443,225 shares of the company’s stock worth $34,343,000 after purchasing an additional 2,536,966 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Hawk Ridge Capital Management LP lifted its holdings in BlackBerry by 39.8% during the 4th quarter. Hawk Ridge Capital Management LP now owns 6,326,400 shares of the company’s stock valued at $22,395,000 after purchasing an additional 1,800,800 shares during the last quarter. 54.48% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have recently commented on the stock. TD Securities lowered their price target on shares of BlackBerry from $3.00 to $2.75 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, June 27th. 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. CIBC raised BlackBerry from a “neutral” rating to a “sector outperform” rating and set a $3.50 price target for the company in a research note on Thursday, June 27th. Robert W. Baird lowered their price target on BlackBerry from $3.50 to $3.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, June 27th. Finally, Canaccord Genuity Group cut their price objective on shares of BlackBerry from $3.25 to $2.70 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, June 27th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have given a hold rating, one has issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $3.20.

BlackBerry Stock Down 1.0 %

BB opened at $2.52 on Friday. BlackBerry has a 1-year low of $2.01 and a 1-year high of $4.90. The business has a 50 day moving average of $2.35 and a 200-day moving average of $2.60. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.48 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -8.67 and a beta of 1.39. The company has a current ratio of 1.43, a quick ratio of 1.43 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.26.

BlackBerry (NYSE:BB) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, September 26th. The company reported ($0.01) EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.03) by $0.02. BlackBerry had a negative net margin of 25.80% and a negative return on equity of 6.43%. The business had revenue of $145.00 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $138.82 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned ($0.06) earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.8% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that BlackBerry will post -0.09 earnings per share for the current 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.