BlackBerry (NYSE:BB) Lowered to “Sell” Rating by StockNews.com

BlackBerry (NYSE:BB) was downgraded by equities researchers at StockNews.com from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday.

A number of other equities analysts have also weighed in on the company. Robert W. Baird upped their price objective on BlackBerry from $3.00 to $3.50 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. TD Cowen raised shares of 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. Canaccord Genuity Group boosted their target price on shares of BlackBerry from $3.00 to $4.75 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 11th. TD Securities upgraded shares of BlackBerry from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price target for the company from $3.25 to $4.00 in a report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada reissued a “sector perform” rating and set a $4.00 price objective on shares of BlackBerry in a report on Tuesday. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have assigned a hold rating, three have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $3.91.

BlackBerry Stock Performance

BlackBerry stock traded down $0.35 during trading on Wednesday, reaching $3.38. The company had a trading volume of 27,430,982 shares, compared to its average volume of 24,181,203. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $4.69 and its 200 day simple moving average is $3.50. BlackBerry has a 52 week low of $2.01 and a 52 week high of $6.24. The company has a current ratio of 1.37, a quick ratio of 1.37 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27. The firm has a market capitalization of $2.02 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -15.36 and a beta of 1.27.

BlackBerry (NYSE:BB) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, April 2nd. The company reported $0.03 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.02 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $141.70 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $137.56 million. BlackBerry had a negative return on equity of 2.02% and a negative net margin of 21.16%. The business’s quarterly revenue was down 7.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.03 EPS. Sell-side analysts forecast that BlackBerry will post -0.03 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity

In other news, CAO Jay P. Chai sold 24,425 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $4.19, for a total transaction of $102,340.75. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through 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 sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 385,552 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,418,831.36. This represents a 28.78 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 244,221 shares of company stock valued at $925,655 in the last ninety days. Insiders own 0.34% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of BlackBerry

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Barclays PLC increased its stake in BlackBerry by 60.2% in the 3rd quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 249,218 shares of the company’s stock worth $652,000 after buying an additional 93,651 shares during the period. Milestone Asset Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of BlackBerry during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $557,000. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. boosted its holdings in shares of BlackBerry by 41.9% in the fourth quarter. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. now owns 13,669,715 shares of the company’s stock valued at $51,856,000 after purchasing an additional 4,039,483 shares during the period. Alberta Investment Management Corp grew its stake in BlackBerry by 60.5% in the fourth quarter. Alberta Investment Management Corp now owns 644,900 shares of the company’s stock worth $2,448,000 after purchasing an additional 243,000 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Thompson Davis & CO. Inc. purchased a new position in BlackBerry during the 4th quarter worth $641,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 54.48% of the company’s stock.

BlackBerry Company Profile

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.