BlackBerry (NYSE:BB) Upgraded to Hold at StockNews.com

StockNews.com upgraded shares of BlackBerry (NYSE:BB) from a sell rating to a hold rating in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday.

BB has been the topic of several other reports. CIBC upped their target price on BlackBerry from $3.50 to $3.60 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, October 17th. Royal Bank of Canada restated a “sector perform” rating and issued a $3.00 price target on shares of BlackBerry in a research report on Friday, September 27th. Finally, Canaccord Genuity Group increased their price objective on shares of BlackBerry from $2.70 to $2.80 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, October 18th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, one has given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $3.23.

BlackBerry Price Performance

BB stock opened at $2.38 on Wednesday. The company has a market capitalization of $1.41 billion, a P/E ratio of -9.52 and a beta of 1.42. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $2.42 and a 200-day moving average price of $2.50. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27, a quick ratio of 1.44 and a current ratio of 1.44. BlackBerry has a 52-week low of $2.01 and a 52-week high of $4.44.

BlackBerry (NYSE:BB) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, September 26th. The company reported ($0.01) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of ($0.03) by $0.02. BlackBerry had a negative return on equity of 3.38% and a negative net margin of 21.66%. The business had revenue of $145.00 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $138.82 million. During the same period last year, the company earned ($0.06) EPS. BlackBerry’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.8% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts expect that BlackBerry will post -0.06 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, insider Philip S. Kurtz sold 15,005 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Saturday, September 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $2.53, for a total transaction of $37,962.65. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 30,129 shares in the company, valued at approximately $76,226.37. This represents a 33.25 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. 0.34% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of BlackBerry

Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. EP Wealth Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of BlackBerry in the 2nd quarter worth $28,000. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. lifted its stake in shares of BlackBerry by 83.3% in the second quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. now owns 11,769 shares of the company’s stock valued at $29,000 after buying an additional 5,349 shares in the last quarter. Quantinno Capital Management LP acquired a new position in shares of BlackBerry during the third quarter valued at about $38,000. Werba Rubin Papier Wealth Management bought a new stake in shares of BlackBerry during the second quarter worth about $43,000. Finally, Viewpoint Capital Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of BlackBerry in the 2nd quarter worth about $50,000. 54.48% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.