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

BlackBerry Limited (NYSE:BB) saw unusually large options trading activity on Wednesday. Stock traders acquired 24,557 call options on the stock. This is an increase of approximately 39% compared to the average volume of 17,626 call options.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

BB has been the subject of several research analyst reports. Canaccord Genuity Group raised their price target on BlackBerry from $2.70 to $2.80 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, October 18th. Royal Bank of Canada reissued a “sector perform” rating and issued a $3.00 price target on shares of BlackBerry in a report on Friday, September 27th. CIBC upped their target price on shares of BlackBerry from $3.50 to $3.60 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 17th. Finally, StockNews.com lowered shares of BlackBerry from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Wednesday, November 20th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have assigned a hold rating, one has given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $3.23.

BlackBerry Stock Up 1.4 %

Shares of BB traded up $0.04 during midday trading on Wednesday, reaching $2.61. 16,313,287 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 9,109,149. The company has a market cap of $1.54 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -10.48 and a beta of 1.42. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $2.42 and a 200-day simple moving average of $2.47. BlackBerry has a 12-month low of $2.01 and a 12-month high of $4.44. The company has a quick ratio of 1.44, a current ratio of 1.44 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27.

BlackBerry (NYSE:BB) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, September 26th. The company reported ($0.01) EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of ($0.03) by $0.02. The firm had revenue of $145.00 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $138.82 million. BlackBerry had a negative net margin of 21.66% and a negative return on equity of 3.38%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 9.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted ($0.06) earnings per share. Research analysts forecast that BlackBerry will post -0.06 EPS for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, insider Philip S. Kurtz sold 15,005 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Saturday, September 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $2.53, for a total value of $37,962.65. Following the sale, the insider now owns 30,129 shares in the company, valued at $76,226.37. This represents a 33.25 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. 0.34% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of BlackBerry

Hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in shares of BlackBerry by 0.8% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 19,505,300 shares of the company’s stock valued at $53,835,000 after buying an additional 149,444 shares during the last quarter. EdgePoint Investment Group Inc. increased its position in shares of BlackBerry by 25.6% during the first quarter. EdgePoint Investment Group Inc. now owns 12,443,225 shares of the company’s stock valued at $34,343,000 after purchasing an additional 2,536,966 shares during the period. Millennium Management LLC increased its position in shares of 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 purchasing an additional 3,369,296 shares during the period. Bank of Montreal Can raised its stake in shares of BlackBerry by 32.7% in the second quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 1,733,809 shares of the company’s stock valued at $4,300,000 after purchasing an additional 427,083 shares in the last quarter. Finally, TD Asset Management Inc lifted its position in BlackBerry by 1.4% in the second quarter. TD Asset Management Inc now owns 1,496,185 shares of the company’s stock worth $3,740,000 after purchasing an additional 21,259 shares during the period. Institutional investors 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.