Short Interest in BlackBerry Limited (NYSE:BB) Expands By 7.1%

BlackBerry Limited (NYSE:BB) saw a large growth in short interest in December. As of December 31st, there was short interest totalling 29,500,000 shares, a growth of 7.1% from the December 15th total of 27,540,000 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 13,000,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 2.3 days. Currently, 5.1% of the shares of the stock are short sold.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts have issued reports on BB shares. StockNews.com raised BlackBerry from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Monday, December 9th. Royal Bank of Canada upped their price objective on BlackBerry from $3.25 to $4.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 10th. TD Cowen upgraded shares of BlackBerry from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their target price for the stock from $3.25 to $4.00 in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Robert W. Baird upped their price target on shares of BlackBerry from $3.00 to $3.50 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, CIBC raised their price target on shares of BlackBerry from $3.50 to $3.60 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 17th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $3.69.

BlackBerry Trading Down 5.3 %

NYSE:BB opened at $3.99 on Tuesday. BlackBerry has a 52 week low of $2.01 and a 52 week high of $4.35. 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 firm’s fifty day moving average is $3.20 and its 200-day moving average is $2.68. The firm has a market cap of $2.36 billion, a P/E ratio of -18.11 and a beta of 1.30.

BlackBerry (NYSE:BB) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The company reported $0.02 EPS for the quarter, beating 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 business had revenue of $143.00 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $144.84 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.01 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was down 5.9% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities analysts expect that BlackBerry will post -0.03 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Transactions at BlackBerry

In other BlackBerry news, CEO John Joseph Giamatteo sold 29,402 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, January 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $4.00, for a total transaction of $117,608.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 490,761 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,963,044. The trade was a 5.65 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Mattias Eriksson sold 12,680 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, January 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $4.00, for a total transaction of $50,720.00. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 278,306 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,113,224. This trade represents a 4.36 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 219,796 shares of company stock valued at $823,314. Corporate insiders own 0.34% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On BlackBerry

Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Ballentine Partners LLC bought a new position in BlackBerry during the fourth quarter worth $65,000. Barclays PLC boosted 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 worth $652,000 after purchasing an additional 93,651 shares in the last quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank grew its stake in shares of BlackBerry by 5.3% in the 3rd quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank now owns 718,314 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,882,000 after buying an additional 36,372 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake 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. Finally, Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio bought a new stake in BlackBerry in the 3rd quarter valued at about $410,000. 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.