CANADA LIFE ASSURANCE Co Acquires 96,972 Shares of BlackBerry Limited (NYSE:BB)

CANADA LIFE ASSURANCE Co lifted its stake in shares of BlackBerry Limited (NYSE:BB - Free Report) by 66.5% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 242,797 shares of the company's stock after purchasing an additional 96,972 shares during the quarter. CANADA LIFE ASSURANCE Co's holdings in BlackBerry were worth $914,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other large investors also recently made changes to their positions in BB. Legal & General Group Plc boosted its stake in BlackBerry by 19.9% during the 4th quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 33,185,748 shares of the company's stock valued at $125,987,000 after purchasing an additional 5,518,216 shares during the last quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC bought a new stake in BlackBerry during the fourth quarter worth $19,485,000. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. raised its position in BlackBerry by 41.9% in the 4th quarter. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. now owns 13,669,715 shares of the company's stock valued at $51,856,000 after buying an additional 4,039,483 shares during the last quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership bought a new position in BlackBerry during the 4th quarter valued at $10,514,000. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted its holdings in BlackBerry by 36.9% during the 4th quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 1,781,820 shares of the company's stock worth $6,735,000 after acquiring an additional 480,205 shares during the last quarter. 54.48% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, SVP Jennifer Armstrong-Owen sold 29,940 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $2.99, for a total value of $89,520.60. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 42,398 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $126,770.02. This represents a 41.39 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Insiders have sold a total of 37,216 shares of company stock worth $112,025 over the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 0.34% of the company's stock.

BlackBerry Stock Performance

BB traded up $0.14 during trading hours on Monday, hitting $3.63. The stock had a trading volume of 2,841,572 shares, compared to its average volume of 13,990,212. BlackBerry Limited has a 1 year low of $2.01 and a 1 year high of $6.24. The company's fifty day simple moving average is $3.79 and its 200 day simple moving average is $3.63. The stock has a market cap of $2.16 billion, a PE ratio of -16.39 and a beta of 1.42. The company has a quick ratio of 1.37, a current ratio of 1.37 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27.

BlackBerry (NYSE:BB - Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, April 2nd. The company reported $0.03 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.02 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $141.70 million during 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 was down 7.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $0.03 earnings per share. Equities analysts anticipate that BlackBerry Limited will post -0.03 earnings per share for the current year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms recently weighed in on BB. StockNews.com upgraded shares of BlackBerry from a "sell" rating to a "hold" rating in a report on Friday, April 11th. Canaccord Genuity Group cut their target price on BlackBerry from $4.75 to $4.25 and set a "hold" rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, April 3rd. Royal Bank of Canada set a $3.75 price target on BlackBerry in a research report on Thursday, April 3rd. Finally, CIBC cut their price objective on BlackBerry from $7.00 to $6.00 and set an "outperformer" rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, April 3rd. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average target price of $4.12.

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.