BlackBerry Limited (NYSE:BB) Short Interest Up 7.1% in December

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

Insider Buying and Selling at BlackBerry

In other news, insider Mattias Eriksson sold 12,680 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, January 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $4.00, for a total value of $50,720.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 278,306 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,113,224. This represents a 4.36 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO John Joseph Giamatteo sold 155,815 shares of BlackBerry stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $3.68, for a total value of $573,399.20. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 385,552 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,418,831.36. The trade was a 28.78 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 219,796 shares of company stock worth $823,314. 0.34% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of BB. EP Wealth Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of BlackBerry during the second quarter valued at about $28,000. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. increased its holdings in BlackBerry by 83.3% during the 2nd quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. now owns 11,769 shares of the company’s stock worth $29,000 after acquiring an additional 5,349 shares during the period. Quantinno Capital Management LP purchased a new stake in BlackBerry in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $38,000. Signaturefd LLC boosted its holdings in BlackBerry by 65.5% in the 3rd quarter. Signaturefd LLC now owns 22,898 shares of the company’s stock valued at $60,000 after purchasing an additional 9,063 shares during the period. Finally, Ballentine Partners LLC purchased a new stake in shares of BlackBerry in the fourth quarter worth $65,000. 54.48% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts have issued reports on the stock. Canaccord Genuity Group lifted their price objective on shares of BlackBerry from $2.80 to $3.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report 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. TD Securities raised shares of BlackBerry from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their target price for the stock from $3.25 to $4.00 in a research report on Friday, December 20th. CIBC boosted their target price on BlackBerry from $3.50 to $3.60 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 17th. Finally, Robert W. Baird increased their price target on BlackBerry from $3.00 to $3.50 and gave the company 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 assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $3.69.

BlackBerry Stock Performance

Shares of BB opened at $3.99 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27, a current ratio of 1.37 and a quick ratio of 1.37. The firm has a market cap of $2.36 billion, a PE ratio of -18.11 and a beta of 1.30. BlackBerry has a 1 year low of $2.01 and a 1 year high of $4.35. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $3.20 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $2.68.

BlackBerry (NYSE:BB) last released its quarterly earnings data 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 21.16% and a negative return on equity of 2.02%. The business had revenue of $143.00 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $144.84 million. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $0.01 earnings per share. The company’s revenue was down 5.9% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts forecast that BlackBerry will post -0.03 EPS for the current 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.