BlackBerry (NYSE:BB) Upgraded to Buy at Wall Street Zen

Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of BlackBerry (NYSE:BB) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research report sent to investors on Friday morning.

A number of other research analysts also recently issued reports on BB. CIBC dropped their price target on shares of BlackBerry from $7.00 to $6.00 and set an “outperformer” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, April 3rd. Canaccord Genuity Group dropped their target price on shares of BlackBerry from $4.75 to $4.25 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, April 3rd. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada set a $3.75 target price on shares of BlackBerry in a research report on Thursday, April 3rd. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $4.12.

BlackBerry Stock Up 1.7%

Shares of NYSE BB opened at $4.14 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $2.47 billion, a P/E ratio of -18.82 and a beta of 1.42. BlackBerry has a 52-week low of $2.01 and a 52-week high of $6.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27, a quick ratio of 1.37 and a current ratio of 1.37. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $3.56 and its 200-day moving average price is $3.88.

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

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other BlackBerry news, SVP Jennifer Armstrong-Owen sold 29,940 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, April 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $2.99, for a total transaction of $89,520.60. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 42,398 shares in the company, valued at approximately $126,770.02. This represents a 41.39% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 37,216 shares of company stock worth $112,025. Insiders own 0.37% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Legal & General Group Plc raised its holdings in 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 buying an additional 5,518,216 shares during the last quarter. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. raised its holdings in BlackBerry by 69.1% during the first quarter. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. now owns 23,112,391 shares of the company’s stock worth $87,064,000 after buying an additional 9,442,676 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of BlackBerry by 1.0% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 23,084,515 shares of the company’s stock valued at $86,936,000 after purchasing an additional 218,684 shares during the last quarter. Hood River Capital Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of BlackBerry in the fourth quarter valued at about $53,267,000. Finally, First Trust Advisors LP raised its holdings in shares of BlackBerry by 13.9% in the fourth quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 12,755,972 shares of the company’s stock valued at $48,218,000 after purchasing an additional 1,558,904 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.