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 acquired 78,445 call options on the company. This represents an increase of 143% compared to the typical volume of 32,257 call options.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CAO Jay P. Chai sold 24,425 shares of the company’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 sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CEO John Joseph Giamatteo sold 155,815 shares of the company’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 directly owns 385,552 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,418,831.36. The trade was a 28.78 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 244,221 shares of company stock worth $925,655 over the last three months. 0.34% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of BlackBerry

A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. EdgePoint Investment Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of BlackBerry by 15.9% in the 3rd 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 in the last quarter. Millennium Management LLC raised its position 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 valued at $8,510,000 after purchasing an additional 3,369,296 shares during the last quarter. Intact Investment Management Inc. raised its position in shares of BlackBerry by 25.7% in the 3rd quarter. Intact Investment Management Inc. now owns 1,439,240 shares of the company’s stock valued at $3,789,000 after purchasing an additional 294,250 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp raised its position in shares of BlackBerry by 1.9% in the 3rd 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 last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its position in shares of BlackBerry by 1.0% in the 3rd 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 during the last quarter. 54.48% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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 current ratio of 1.37 and a quick ratio of 1.37. BlackBerry has a 1 year low of $2.01 and a 1 year high of $5.22. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $3.66 and its two-hundred day moving average is $2.83. The stock has a market cap of $3.05 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -23.43 and a beta of 1.31.

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

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts recently issued reports on BB shares. StockNews.com raised shares of BlackBerry from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, December 9th. TD Securities raised shares of BlackBerry from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their target price for the company from $3.25 to $4.00 in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Canaccord Genuity Group increased their target price on shares of BlackBerry from $2.80 to $3.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Robert W. Baird increased their target price on shares of BlackBerry from $3.00 to $3.50 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Finally, TD Cowen upgraded 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 report on Friday, December 20th. Six research 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, BlackBerry has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $3.69.

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.