BlackBerry Limited (NYSE:BB) Receives Average Recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from Brokerages

BlackBerry Limited (NYSE:BB) has earned an average recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the nine research firms that are currently covering the company, Marketbeat reports. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, three have given a buy recommendation and one has given a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average 12 month price target among brokers that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $3.91.

BB has been the subject of several analyst reports. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their price objective on shares of BlackBerry from $3.25 to $4.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 10th. Canaccord Genuity Group boosted their price target on BlackBerry from $3.00 to $4.75 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 11th. TD Cowen raised BlackBerry from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price objective for the company from $3.25 to $4.00 in a report on Friday, December 20th. StockNews.com raised BlackBerry from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, December 9th. Finally, Robert W. Baird upped their target price on BlackBerry from $3.00 to $3.50 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th.

BlackBerry Stock Down 2.1 %

Shares of BlackBerry stock opened at $4.33 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $2.58 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -19.66 and a beta of 1.27. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $4.69 and a 200-day simple moving average of $3.42. BlackBerry has a 52-week low of $2.01 and a 52-week high of $6.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27, a current ratio of 1.37 and a quick ratio of 1.37.

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

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, insider Mattias Eriksson sold 14,475 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $3.68, for a total transaction of $53,268.00. Following 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 ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CEO John Joseph Giamatteo sold 155,815 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $3.68, for a total value of $573,399.20. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 385,552 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,418,831.36. This represents a 28.78 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 244,221 shares of company stock valued at $925,655 in the last three months. Company insiders own 0.34% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of BlackBerry

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC increased its stake in BlackBerry by 63.9% in the fourth quarter. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC now owns 9,773 shares of the company’s stock valued at $37,000 after acquiring an additional 3,811 shares during the period. Quantinno Capital Management LP bought a new position in BlackBerry during the third quarter worth about $38,000. Masso Torrence Wealth Management Inc. acquired a new stake in BlackBerry during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $38,000. Mindset Wealth Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of BlackBerry in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $38,000. Finally, Quadrant Capital Group LLC raised its holdings in shares of BlackBerry by 100.3% in the 4th quarter. Quadrant Capital Group LLC now owns 10,000 shares of the company’s stock worth $38,000 after buying an additional 5,008 shares in the last quarter. 54.48% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.