BlackBerry Limited (NYSE:BB) Short Interest Update

BlackBerry Limited (NYSE:BB) saw a large increase in short interest in the month of February. As of February 15th, there was short interest totalling 35,280,000 shares, an increase of 23.0% from the January 31st total of 28,690,000 shares. Currently, 6.1% of the company’s stock are short sold. Based on an average daily volume of 21,910,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 1.6 days.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Canaccord Genuity Group upped their price target on BlackBerry from $2.80 to $3.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of BlackBerry from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, December 9th. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their price objective on BlackBerry from $3.25 to $4.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Friday, January 10th. Robert W. Baird upped their target price on shares of BlackBerry from $3.00 to $3.50 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, TD Cowen upgraded 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 note on Friday, December 20th. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $3.69.

BlackBerry Price Performance

Shares of BlackBerry stock traded up $0.24 during trading hours on Wednesday, reaching $4.66. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 18,551,098 shares, compared to its average volume of 13,186,244. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $4.56 and a 200-day moving average price of $3.23. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27, a current ratio of 1.37 and a quick ratio of 1.37. The stock has a market cap of $2.78 billion, a P/E ratio of -21.16 and a beta of 1.27. BlackBerry has a one year low of $2.01 and a one year high of $6.24.

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

Insider Activity

In related news, CEO John Joseph Giamatteo sold 29,402 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, January 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $4.00, for a total value of $117,608.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 490,761 shares in the company, valued at $1,963,044. The trade was a 5.65 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CAO Jay P. Chai sold 24,425 shares of the company’s 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. Insiders sold a total of 244,221 shares of company stock worth $925,655 in the last quarter. 0.34% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On BlackBerry

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Creative Planning grew its holdings in BlackBerry by 40.8% during the 3rd quarter. Creative Planning now owns 36,551 shares of the company’s stock valued at $96,000 after purchasing an additional 10,585 shares during the last quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC boosted its position in shares of BlackBerry by 60.7% during the third quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 20,769 shares of the company’s stock valued at $540,000 after buying an additional 7,842 shares during the period. Intact Investment Management Inc. boosted its position in shares of BlackBerry by 25.7% during the third quarter. Intact Investment Management Inc. now owns 1,439,240 shares of the company’s stock valued at $3,789,000 after buying an additional 294,250 shares during the period. GSA Capital Partners LLP grew its stake in shares of BlackBerry by 189.5% during the third quarter. GSA Capital Partners LLP now owns 165,394 shares of the company’s stock valued at $433,000 after buying an additional 108,268 shares during the last quarter. Finally, CIBC Asset Management Inc raised its holdings in shares of BlackBerry by 8.9% in the third quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc now owns 700,933 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,846,000 after buying an additional 57,123 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 54.48% of the company’s stock.

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.