BlackBerry Limited (NYSE:BB) Sees Large Growth in Short Interest

BlackBerry Limited (NYSE:BB) was the target of a large growth in short interest in March. As of March 31st, there was short interest totalling 47,870,000 shares, a growth of 10.6% from the March 15th total of 43,290,000 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 10,050,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 4.8 days. Approximately 8.3% of the company’s stock are short sold.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities research analysts have commented on BB shares. Robert W. Baird cut their price target on shares of BlackBerry from $4.50 to $3.50 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, February 14th. StockNews.com lowered shares of BlackBerry from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 21st. Royal Bank of Canada restated a “sector perform” rating and set a $3.00 price objective on shares of BlackBerry in a research note on Thursday, April 4th. TD Securities lowered their price objective on shares of BlackBerry from $4.00 to $3.75 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, December 21st. Finally, Raymond James lowered their price objective on shares of BlackBerry from $7.00 to $6.50 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, December 21st. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating and six have given a hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $4.08.

Insider Activity at BlackBerry

In other BlackBerry news, Director Philip G. Brace purchased 35,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 14th. The shares were purchased at an average cost of $2.79 per share, with a total value of $97,650.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 35,000 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $97,650. The purchase was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. 1.94% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of BB. First Trust Advisors LP grew its position in shares of BlackBerry by 70.1% during the 4th quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 33,801,506 shares of the company’s stock worth $119,657,000 after purchasing an additional 13,925,510 shares in the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc grew its position in shares of BlackBerry by 21.2% during the 4th quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 23,417,371 shares of the company’s stock worth $83,468,000 after purchasing an additional 4,101,823 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in shares of BlackBerry by 0.7% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 19,355,856 shares of the company’s stock worth $68,520,000 after purchasing an additional 131,133 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of BlackBerry during the 4th quarter worth approximately $48,775,000. Finally, Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. grew its position in shares of BlackBerry by 17.3% during the 4th quarter. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. now owns 9,229,327 shares of the company’s stock worth $32,672,000 after purchasing an additional 1,362,284 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 54.48% of the company’s stock.

BlackBerry Stock Down 1.4 %

Shares of BB opened at $2.72 on Wednesday. BlackBerry has a 52 week low of $2.46 and a 52 week high of $5.75. The firm has a market cap of $1.60 billion, a P/E ratio of -11.33 and a beta of 1.41. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $2.79 and its 200 day simple moving average is $3.30. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.25, a quick ratio of 1.43 and a current ratio of 1.43.

BlackBerry (NYSE:BB) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, April 3rd. The company reported $0.03 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.03) by $0.06. BlackBerry had a negative net margin of 15.24% and a negative return on equity of 0.24%. The business had revenue of $173.00 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $150.47 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned ($0.04) EPS. BlackBerry’s quarterly revenue was up 14.6% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts forecast that BlackBerry will post -0.09 earnings per share 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 CylancePROTECT, an endpoint protection platform and mobile threat defense solution; CylanceOPTICS, an endpoint detection and response solution; CylanceGUARD, a managed detection and response solution; CylanceGATEWAY, an AI-empowered zero-trust network access solution; CylancePERSONA, a user and entity behavior analytics solution; BlackBerry unified endpoint management, a central software component for secure communications platform; BlackBerry Dynamics, a development platform and secure container for mobile applications; and BlackBerry Workspaces solutions.