Stock Traders Purchase High Volume of BlackBerry Call Options (NYSE:BB)

BlackBerry Limited (NYSE:BB) saw unusually large options trading activity on Tuesday. Stock traders purchased 39,126 call options on the company. This represents an increase of 39% compared to the average volume of 28,118 call options.

BlackBerry Price Performance

Shares of NYSE BB opened at $4.07 on Thursday. The company has a current ratio of 1.44, a quick ratio of 1.44 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27. The stock has a market cap of $2.41 billion, a P/E ratio of -16.28 and a beta of 1.30. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $2.89 and a two-hundred day moving average of $2.57. BlackBerry has a twelve month low of $2.01 and a twelve month high of $4.35.

BlackBerry (NYSE:BB) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The company reported $0.02 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($0.01) by $0.03. BlackBerry had a negative net margin of 21.66% and a negative return on equity of 3.38%. The firm had revenue of $143.00 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $144.84 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $0.01 EPS. BlackBerry’s revenue for the quarter was down 5.9% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts forecast that BlackBerry will post -0.06 earnings per share for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, insider Mattias Eriksson sold 12,680 shares of BlackBerry stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, January 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $4.00, for a total value of $50,720.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 278,306 shares in the company, valued at $1,113,224. The trade was a 4.36 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO John Joseph Giamatteo sold 29,402 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, January 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $4.00, for a total transaction of $117,608.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 490,761 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,963,044. This trade represents a 5.65 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 219,796 shares of company stock worth $823,314 in the last ninety days. 0.34% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On BlackBerry

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in BB. TD Asset Management Inc grew its position in BlackBerry by 1.4% in the 2nd quarter. TD Asset Management Inc now owns 1,496,185 shares of the company’s stock valued at $3,740,000 after buying an additional 21,259 shares during the last quarter. Werba Rubin Papier Wealth Management purchased a new stake in shares of BlackBerry in the second quarter valued at about $43,000. Headlands Technologies LLC increased its stake in shares of BlackBerry by 141.4% during the second quarter. Headlands Technologies LLC now owns 806,729 shares of the company’s stock worth $2,001,000 after acquiring an additional 472,577 shares during the period. Virtu Financial LLC raised its holdings in BlackBerry by 911.4% during the second quarter. Virtu Financial LLC now owns 371,166 shares of the company’s stock worth $920,000 after purchasing an additional 334,466 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Marathon Trading Investment Management LLC purchased a new position in BlackBerry during the second quarter worth about $169,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 54.48% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

BB has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. TD Securities upgraded shares of BlackBerry from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $3.25 to $4.00 in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Robert W. Baird increased their price objective on BlackBerry from $3.00 to $3.50 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. StockNews.com upgraded BlackBerry from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, December 9th. CIBC increased their price target on shares of BlackBerry from $3.50 to $3.60 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 17th. Finally, TD Cowen upgraded shares of BlackBerry from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $3.25 to $4.00 in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $3.60.

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.