Consumer Electronics

More BlackBerry Damage From Goldman Sachs Downgrade Than Meets the Eye

BlackBerry Passport
courtesy of BlackBerry Ltd.
BlackBerry Ltd. (NASDAQ: BBRY) has long been the whipping boy of both iPhone and Android phones. The company has seen its market share fall to these giants, and it seems like a buyout might be the only hope for BlackBerry. Taking this into account, a key analyst weighed in on BlackBerry’s position in Monday’s trading and the result were not very favorable.

Goldman Sachs downgraded BlackBerry to a Sell rating from Neutral. This is based on the expectation that BlackBerry will fail in its attempts to boost its revenue, after the company already cut its costs.

The company expects to double its software sales in the 2015 fiscal year to roughly $500 million. This push would be primarily driven by mobile-device-management software sales.

The brokerage firm says the $500 million goal in sales is fairly outlandish, considering that if BlackBerry makes this goal, it would move ahead of the market leaders in the timespan of just a year. The time frame alone for this just seems incredibly unlikely for the goal.

BlackBerry appears to have also crossed below its 200-day moving average of $10.00 as a level that had been support on multiple occasions, but we will have to see how that holds up in the coming days. The 200-day moving average is currently $10.01.

The stock hit its 52-week low $7.01 back in April of 2014. Since that time the shares have made a solid push multiple times but none of these peaks have been sustained. The most recent peak was in January on rumors of potential buyout.

Investors and analysts alike seem to hold BlackBerry in the same regard, as it was also one of the top 10 most shorted stocks in the month of February.

Shares of BlackBerry were down 7% at $9.91 on Monday afternoon trading. The stock has a consensus analyst price target of $9.58 and a 52-week trading range of $7.01 to $12.63.

ALSO READ: Why Apple Watch Fails to Invigorate Shares

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