BlackBerry (NYSE:BB) Rating Increased to Strong-Buy at Cibc World Mkts

Cibc World Mkts upgraded shares of BlackBerry (NYSE:BB) from a hold rating to a strong-buy rating in a research note released on Thursday, Zacks.com reports.

A number of other equities research analysts have also recently commented on the company. Canaccord Genuity Group lowered their target price on BlackBerry from $3.25 to $2.70 and set a hold rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday. Royal Bank of Canada restated a sector perform rating and set a $3.00 price objective on shares of BlackBerry in a report on Thursday. Robert W. Baird dropped their target price on shares of BlackBerry from $3.50 to $3.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday. CIBC raised shares of BlackBerry from a neutral rating to a sector outperform rating and set a $3.50 target price for the company in a research report on Thursday. Finally, Canaccord Genuity Group lowered their price target on shares of BlackBerry from $3.25 to $2.70 and set a hold rating on the stock in a report on Thursday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have assigned a hold rating, one has assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average target price of $3.20.

BlackBerry Trading Up 1.2 %

Shares of BB stock opened at $2.48 on Thursday. BlackBerry has a 52-week low of $2.20 and a 52-week high of $5.75. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $2.76 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $2.95. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.25, a quick ratio of 1.43 and a current ratio of 1.43. The company has a market capitalization of $1.46 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -8.55 and a beta of 1.37.

BlackBerry (NYSE:BB) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, June 26th. The company reported ($0.03) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($0.04) by $0.01. The company had revenue of $144.00 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $132.05 million. BlackBerry had a negative return on equity of 6.30% and a negative net margin of 25.80%. BlackBerry’s quarterly revenue was down 61.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $0.04 earnings per share. Research analysts anticipate that BlackBerry will post -0.09 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Trading of BlackBerry

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. First Trust Advisors LP lifted its holdings in 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. FIFTHDELTA Ltd increased its position in shares of BlackBerry by 2.3% during the first quarter. FIFTHDELTA Ltd now owns 31,499,858 shares of the company’s stock valued at $86,940,000 after buying an additional 710,015 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in shares of BlackBerry by 0.8% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 19,505,300 shares of the company’s stock valued at $53,835,000 after buying an additional 149,444 shares during the period. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of BlackBerry in the fourth quarter worth about $48,775,000. Finally, EdgePoint Investment Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of BlackBerry by 25.6% in the first quarter. EdgePoint Investment Group Inc. now owns 12,443,225 shares of the company’s stock valued at $34,343,000 after acquiring an additional 2,536,966 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 54.48% of the company’s stock.

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.