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

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

Insider Activity

In related news, insider Mattias Eriksson sold 14,475 shares of BlackBerry stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $3.68, for a total transaction of $53,268.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 238,838 shares in the company, valued at $878,923.84. The trade was a 5.71 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO John Joseph Giamatteo sold 29,402 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, January 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $4.00, for a total value of $117,608.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 490,761 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,963,044. The trade was a 5.65 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 244,221 shares of company stock worth $925,655. Company insiders own 0.34% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On BlackBerry

Institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. EP Wealth Advisors LLC acquired a new position in shares of BlackBerry in the second quarter worth $28,000. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. increased its position in BlackBerry by 83.3% in the 2nd quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. now owns 11,769 shares of the company’s stock worth $29,000 after purchasing an additional 5,349 shares during the last quarter. Quantinno Capital Management LP purchased a new stake in shares of BlackBerry during the 3rd quarter worth about $38,000. Masso Torrence Wealth Management Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of BlackBerry during the 4th quarter valued at about $38,000. Finally, Sanctuary Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of BlackBerry in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $40,000. 54.48% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have recently commented on BB. CIBC raised their price objective on BlackBerry from $3.50 to $3.60 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, October 17th. TD Cowen upgraded shares of BlackBerry from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price target for the company from $3.25 to $4.00 in a report on Friday, December 20th. Canaccord Genuity Group boosted their price objective on shares of BlackBerry from $2.80 to $3.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. StockNews.com raised shares of BlackBerry from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, December 9th. Finally, Robert W. Baird upped their price target 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. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, BlackBerry currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $3.69.

BlackBerry Price Performance

BlackBerry stock traded up $0.19 during midday trading on Tuesday, hitting $4.50. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 8,018,990 shares, compared to its average volume of 19,628,393. BlackBerry has a 12 month low of $2.01 and a 12 month high of $4.57. The company has a quick ratio of 1.37, a current ratio of 1.37 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $3.57 and its 200-day moving average price is $2.80. The company has a market capitalization of $2.66 billion, a PE ratio of -20.39 and a beta of 1.31.

BlackBerry (NYSE:BB) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The company reported $0.02 earnings per share for the quarter, topping 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 posted $0.01 EPS. The company’s revenue was down 5.9% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts anticipate that BlackBerry will post -0.03 earnings per share 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.