BlackBerry Target of Unusually Large Options Trading (NYSE:BB)

BlackBerry Limited (NYSE:BB) was the target of unusually large options trading activity on Wednesday. Traders purchased 78,445 call options on the stock. This represents an increase of 143% compared to the typical daily volume of 32,257 call options.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CAO Jay P. Chai sold 24,425 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, January 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $4.19, for a total transaction of $102,340.75. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO John Joseph Giamatteo sold 155,815 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $3.68, for a total transaction of $573,399.20. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 385,552 shares in the company, 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. Insiders have sold 244,221 shares of company stock worth $925,655 in the last three months. 0.34% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in BB. Millennium Management LLC grew its position in BlackBerry by 5,408.9% during the second quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 3,431,588 shares of the company’s stock valued at $8,510,000 after buying an additional 3,369,296 shares during the period. EdgePoint Investment Group Inc. grew its position in BlackBerry by 15.9% during the third quarter. EdgePoint Investment Group Inc. now owns 11,922,795 shares of the company’s stock valued at $31,238,000 after buying an additional 1,637,916 shares during the period. Potrero Capital Research LLC bought a new stake in BlackBerry during the third quarter valued at approximately $2,359,000. Capstone Investment Advisors LLC bought a new stake in BlackBerry during the third quarter valued at approximately $1,285,000. Finally, Intact Investment Management Inc. boosted its position 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 during the period. 54.48% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages recently commented on BB. Robert W. Baird lifted their target price on shares of BlackBerry from $3.00 to $3.50 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. TD Cowen raised shares of BlackBerry from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price target for the stock from $3.25 to $4.00 in a report on Friday, December 20th. CIBC raised their price target on shares of BlackBerry from $3.50 to $3.60 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, October 17th. TD Securities raised shares of BlackBerry from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price target for the stock from $3.25 to $4.00 in a report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, Canaccord Genuity Group raised their price target on shares of BlackBerry from $2.80 to $3.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating 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 given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $3.69.

BlackBerry Stock Up 1.5 %

Shares of BlackBerry stock opened at $5.16 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27, a quick ratio of 1.37 and a current ratio of 1.37. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.05 billion, a PE ratio of -23.43 and a beta of 1.31. BlackBerry has a 52-week low of $2.01 and a 52-week high of $5.22. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $3.66 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $2.83.

BlackBerry (NYSE:BB) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The company reported $0.02 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate 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 analysts’ expectations of $144.84 million. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $0.01 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 5.9% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts anticipate that BlackBerry will post -0.03 EPS 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.