StockNews.com Upgrades BlackBerry (NYSE:BB) to “Hold”

BlackBerry (NYSE:BB) was upgraded by equities research analysts at StockNews.com from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note issued on Tuesday.

Several other research analysts also recently weighed in on the stock. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed a “sector perform” rating and issued a $3.00 target price on shares of BlackBerry in a report on Friday, September 27th. CIBC upped their price target on BlackBerry from $3.50 to $3.60 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 17th. Finally, Canaccord Genuity Group raised their target price on shares of BlackBerry from $2.70 to $2.80 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, October 18th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, one has given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $3.23.

BlackBerry Stock Performance

Shares of BlackBerry stock traded down $0.02 on Tuesday, hitting $2.55. 8,678,588 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 9,108,424. BlackBerry has a 1 year low of $2.01 and a 1 year high of $4.44. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $2.44 and a 200-day simple moving average of $2.45. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27, a quick ratio of 1.44 and a current ratio of 1.44. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.51 billion, a PE ratio of -10.18 and a beta of 1.43.

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

Insider Buying and Selling at BlackBerry

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

Institutional Investors Weigh In On BlackBerry

Institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Intact Investment Management Inc. increased its stake in BlackBerry by 25.7% in the 3rd quarter. Intact Investment Management Inc. now owns 1,439,240 shares of the company’s stock worth $3,789,000 after buying an additional 294,250 shares during the period. Capstone Investment Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of BlackBerry in the 3rd quarter worth $1,285,000. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in shares of BlackBerry by 0.8% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 19,505,300 shares of the company’s stock worth $53,835,000 after buying an additional 149,444 shares in the last quarter. Cubist Systematic Strategies LLC increased its stake in shares of BlackBerry by 815.6% during the second quarter. Cubist Systematic Strategies LLC now owns 548,884 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,361,000 after buying an additional 488,934 shares during the period. Finally, Virtu Financial LLC increased its position in BlackBerry by 911.4% during the 2nd quarter. Virtu Financial LLC now owns 371,166 shares of the company’s stock valued at $920,000 after purchasing an additional 334,466 shares during the period. 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.