BlackBerry (NYSE:BB) Reaches New 52-Week High – What’s Next?

BlackBerry Limited (NYSE:BB) hit a new 52-week high during mid-day trading on Tuesday . The stock traded as high as $6.09 and last traded at $6.12, with a volume of 4462251 shares changing hands. The stock had previously closed at $5.69.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several analysts have recently issued reports on BB shares. TD Securities upgraded shares of BlackBerry from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their target price for the company from $3.25 to $4.00 in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Robert W. Baird upped their target price on shares of BlackBerry from $3.00 to $3.50 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Canaccord Genuity Group increased their price objective on shares of BlackBerry from $2.80 to $3.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report 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 stock from $3.25 to $4.00 in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada increased their price objective on shares of BlackBerry from $3.25 to $4.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Friday, January 10th. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $3.69.

BlackBerry Trading Down 4.9 %

The company has a market capitalization of $3.32 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -25.34 and a beta of 1.31. The company has a quick ratio of 1.37, a current ratio of 1.37 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $4.26 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $3.06.

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

Insider Buying and Selling at BlackBerry

In other BlackBerry news, insider Mattias Eriksson sold 14,475 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $3.68, for a total value of $53,268.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 238,838 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $878,923.84. This trade represents a 5.71 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CAO Jay P. Chai sold 24,425 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, January 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $4.19, for a total transaction of $102,340.75. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 244,221 shares of company stock worth $925,655 over the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.34% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in BB. Legal & General Group Plc raised its holdings in shares of BlackBerry by 19.9% during the fourth quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 33,185,748 shares of the company’s stock worth $125,987,000 after purchasing an additional 5,518,216 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in shares of BlackBerry by 1.6% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 22,865,831 shares of the company’s stock valued at $86,844,000 after purchasing an additional 364,569 shares during the period. Hood River Capital Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of BlackBerry in the fourth quarter valued at about $53,267,000. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. grew its position 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. Finally, First Trust Advisors LP boosted its position in BlackBerry by 13.9% during the fourth quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 12,755,972 shares of the company’s stock worth $48,218,000 after acquiring an additional 1,558,904 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other 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.