[beercan640]

https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN29Y1S8

Three BlackBerry executives, including the chief financial officer, sold $1.7 million of the telecoms technology firm’s stock in the early days of this month’s meteoric share price rise, filings with securities regulators show.

BlackBerry and other heavily shorted stocks have soared in the past few days as traders organizing on social media platforms such as Reddit took on the hedge funds making bets against them. The stock sales represent one of the first examples of company executives cashing out on the frenzy.

The executives sold their holdings on Jan. 20 at prices ranging from $12.63 to $13.01, nearly double what the stock had been trading at a week earlier.

BlackBerry shares climbed as high as $28.77 in New York on Wednesday and ended trading on Thursday at $14.65.

Chief Financial Officer Steve Rai sold almost 33,000 shares, his entire position in the company, according to a filing made with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on January 21, in a trade valued at $428,731.

Mark Wilson, the company’s chief marketing officer, sold 78,500 shares, worth $991,455, according to a filing.

Billy Ho, who leads divisions within Blackberry, sold $259,000 of shares.

All of the executives have sold stock periodically over the past year. The disposals at the start of the Reddit-driven rally represent the largest for the executives in the last year, according to filings.

“The BlackBerry executives traded during an open trading window, as permitted under company policy, and all of our executives continue to have strong equity-based incentives through our long-term equity program,” a BlackBerry spokeswoman said in an email.

BlackBerry did not make any of the executives available for comment.

[spARTacus]

I bet ya they are wondering about hindsight, in terms of if they could have timed it a little better and made even more.

[spARTacus]

So maybe double what BlackBerry was worth at the start of the rally is a close estimate as to what some of them think BlackBerry is really worth.

[parryberry]

Not surprised someone has cashed in. Was only a matter of time

[lobbyintx]

I read that article. It said BlackBerry has lost money in the last 7 quarters but I don't remember seeing that in the earnings report.

Posted via CB10

[conite]

I read that article. It said BlackBerry has lost money in the last 7 quarters but I don't remember seeing that in the earnings report.

Posted via CB10

They lost a bit each quarter, but made a small profit with non-GAAP figures.

[Munchkinguy]

I sold all my BlackBerry shares too. Been holding for 7 years and the price never went above my purchase price until January of this year. No dividends either. So at the first sign of a profitable exit, I sold as quickly as possible.

[beercan640]

What does it say about the future of Blackberry when the CFO and the Chief Marketing Officer sell their shares?

Are they going to repurchase the shares when the price drops someday or are they out?

[Troy Tiscareno]

What does it say about the future of Blackberry when the CFO and the Chief Marketing Officer sell their shares?

Are they going to repurchase the shares when the price drops someday or are they out?

Understand that the rise in the stock price has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with BB's likely future success - there's absolutely nothing that is public knowledge that would suggest future success that justifies this stock price.

Instead, the stock price rose because a bunch of "Internet geeks" on a Reddit investment thread figured out that hedge funds were massively shorting stocks of companies they used to love (and a few still did) - companies like GameStop, AMC, and, yes, BlackBerry - which was likely to drive some or all of them completely out of business, and those Reddit folks didn't think that was fair. So... they collectively decided they were going to buy up stock in those companies - not because they had any belief that the company had growth in their futures, but simply to send a message to big institutional investors that they didn't want to see down-on-their-luck companies taken completely out - and all the wealth drained from them and given to already-wealthy institutions. By buying up the stock and raising the stock price, they caused a massive "short squeeze".

When you "short" a stock, you are essentially "borrowing" stocks at today's price from a huge broker, and promising to pay for that stock at a specific time in the future - a week, a month, etc. If the stock price is $10/share today, but it drops to $6 a share by the time you have to pay back your loan, then you can sell it back for $10 and keep the extra $4 for yourself. BUT... if you short a stock at $10, and then the price goes up to $20 when your short is due, you have now LOST $10. What's worse, though, is that there is really no ceiling to how far upside down you can get. If your $10 stock rises to $1000, you're now out $990 for each stock you shorted.

These Reddit folks bought these stocks and ran up the share price, which caused MASSIVE losses for those hedge funds - at least $70B, and probably closer to $100B. And a lot of those buyers made money - some made a LOT of money. But eventually the stock price is going to fall down again, and some people's shares are likely to become worthless or nearly so. Despite what you see on the news though, these folks are fully aware of this, and they don't care. Most only invested what they could afford to lose, and their goal wasn't to make money themselves - it was to send a message to the hedge funds: leave these suffering companies alone. They didn't want to see these battered companies go completely bankrupt and put tens of thousands of workers out of work.

Of course, the big investment firms are furious and scared; they're not used to anyone but them having this kind of market power, or being able to manipulate the market like they do - but those Reddit geeks figured out that if they work together, they have that power too, and they're using it to send their message. It's not a message the big guys want to hear, though, so they're trying to call in favors behind the scenes to stop it. Unfortunately for them, though, too many people, across the entire political spectrum, have figured out what's going on, and know that THEIR investments are vulnerable if they anger that many people, so they're demanding answers from the investment companies.

Things are getting "interesting..."

[beercan640]

Thanks for the long explanation about what's going on with the 'Reddit Rally'.

I was just curious what it means when people in head positions in a corporation sell their entire position.

[Chuck Finley69]

What does it say about the future of Blackberry when the CFO and the Chief Marketing Officer sell their shares?

Are they going to repurchase the shares when the price drops someday or are they out?

It means the share price hit the maximum share price value in their opinion. Getting back in or staying out depends on many other variables, since their paycheck and other compensation is already “back in” where outsiders aren’t impacted similarly.

[co4nd]

I bet ya they are wondering about hindsight, in terms of if they could have timed it a little better and made even more.

I bet their happier to have gotten out at an unexpected price increase.

[Chuck Finley69]

I bet the happier to have gotten out at an unexpected price increase. The fact that they jump on it like the did probably tells us what we need to know about the companies short term prospects

This is correct. In USD, this has been a company that based on latest financial results has been pegged $8-9 value. Longer term, with IVY announcement plus Facebook announcement lacking any idea of actual numbers, $14 USD would have been a generous price if history repeats itself.

Getting paid 2 years early is a no brainer sale. The bigger consideration is that Fairfax consortium of institutional shareholders gave BlackBerry Limited some downside price floor. If the consortium unloaded shares due to value detachment, that could be a real bigger problem.

[Troy Tiscareno]

Thanks for the long explanation about what's going on with the 'Reddit Rally'.

I was just curious what it means when people in head positions in a corporation sell their entire position.

It simply means that the stock price was far higher than they had any reason to expect it to be, now or in the near future, so it's unlikely that their stocks would ever be worth that much again. Keep in mind that the stock has been down in the $4-5 range for a long time, and that there's nothing in the works that could reasonably be expected to get it to take off. $7-8/share might be a realistic goal if some of their new products are successful and/or if they get big licensing deals on some of the existing ones, but the prices that they've seen this past week are way outside any reasonable expectation, so anyone holding on to stock hoping for a miracle just got it, and it was simply their best chance at cashing out, short of some long-term success that may or may not ever come. It's been a LOT of years since the stock was over $10/share (I remember posts back in 2011 where people proudly announced that they "got in" at only $40/share, and a bunch of others in 2012 who "got in" at $20/share), so it would be unlikely that they're going to have a better opportunity.

Again - the stock didn't rally because BB did anything to deserve the higher stock price. Instead, it rallied because the WallStreetBets folks didn't want the hedge funds to crush BB (and a dozen other stocks they remembered fondly) with a massive short sale, and they fought back with their own cash. This wasn't organic growth - it was a message, and an unprecedented opportunity for some, and a disaster for the hedge funds.

[Tsepz_GP]

Understand that the rise in the stock price has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with BB's likely future success - there's absolutely nothing that is public knowledge that would suggest future success that justifies this stock price.

Instead, the stock price rose because a bunch of "Internet geeks" on a Reddit investment thread figured out that hedge funds were massively shorting stocks of companies they used to love (and a few still did) - companies like GameStop, AMC, and, yes, BlackBerry - which was likely to drive some or all of them completely out of business, and those Reddit folks didn't think that was fair. So... they collectively decided they were going to buy up stock in those companies - not because they had any belief that the company had growth in their futures, but simply to send a message to big institutional investors that they didn't want to see down-on-their-luck companies taken completely out - and all the wealth drained from them and given to already-wealthy institutions. By buying up the stock and raising the stock price, they caused a massive "short squeeze".

When you "short" a stock, you are essentially "borrowing" stocks at today's price from a huge broker, and promising to pay for that stock at a specific time in the future - a week, a month, etc. If the stock price is $10/share today, but it drops to $6 a share by the time you have to pay back your loan, then you can sell it back for $10 and keep the extra $4 for yourself. BUT... if you short a stock at $10, and then the price goes up to $20 when your short is due, you have now LOST $10. What's worse, though, is that there is really no ceiling to how far upside down you can get. If your $10 stock rises to $1000, you're now out $990 for each stock you shorted.

These Reddit folks bought these stocks and ran up the share price, which caused MASSIVE losses for those hedge funds - at least $70B, and probably closer to $100B. And a lot of those buyers made money - some made a LOT of money. But eventually the stock price is going to fall down again, and some people's shares are likely to become worthless or nearly so. Despite what you see on the news though, these folks are fully aware of this, and they don't care. Most only invested what they could afford to lose, and their goal wasn't to make money themselves - it was to send a message to the hedge funds: leave these suffering companies alone. They didn't want to see these battered companies go completely bankrupt and put tens of thousands of workers out of work.

Of course, the big investment firms are furious and scared; they're not used to anyone but them having this kind of market power, or being able to manipulate the market like they do - but those Reddit geeks figured out that if they work together, they have that power too, and they're using it to send their message. It's not a message the big guys want to hear, though, so they're trying to call in favors behind the scenes to stop it. Unfortunately for them, though, too many people, across the entire political spectrum, have figured out what's going on, and know that THEIR investments are vulnerable if they anger that many people, so they're demanding answers from the investment companies.

Things are getting "interesting..."

One thing the 1% fear the most is the day the rest of us realise that there is more of us and less of them and that we can use our sheer numbers to bring down their house of cards.

They have definitely received the message, will be interesting to see how they try suppress situations like this in future if they can at all.

This situation mixed with the pandemic and the remaining damage left by the 2008 crisis is giving people more and more reason to rather look into cryptocurrency and other decentralized financial mechanisms, I love it. The next decade is going to be incredibly interesting.

This may sound cliche but we are certainly in unprecedented times, even the 1% is now rattled.

[Chuck Finley69]

One thing the 1% fear the most is the day the rest of us realise that there is more of us and less of them and that we can use our sheer numbers to bring down their house of cards.

They have definitely received the message, will be interesting to see how they try suppress situations like this in future if they can at all.

This situation mixed with the pandemic and the remaining damage left by the 2008 crisis is giving people more and more reason to rather look into cryptocurrency and other decentralized financial mechanisms, I love it. The next decade is going to be incredibly interesting.

This may sound cliche but we are certainly in unprecedented times, even the 1% is now rattled.

The 1% isn’t rattled and never are since this whole situation is tiny in the grand scheme of things.

[bakron1]

The 1% isn’t rattled and never are since this whole situation is tiny in the grand scheme of things.

Well put sir and that’s why they are in the top 1% club.

[conite]

I am missing the whole David versus Goliath part of this debate.

Hedge funds invest OUR money (as part of a properly managed balanced portfolio). And was it NOT correct to be shorting Gamespot - a company that was most likely on its way out?

The Reddit users weren't trying to be heroes. They were trying to work the system to make themselves rich. I have no problem with that, good for them. But they didn't do it for me, or for anyone else.

[Tsepz_GP]

The 1% isn’t rattled and never are since this whole situation is tiny in the grand scheme of things.

Have you seen what is going on with Silver right now?

Considering how haphazardly the Redditors did what they did, all you need to is a more sophisticated network to organize something that has more sinister reasoning behind it. For how badly they did this they managed to cause some pretty significant damage and expose some glaring issues with the stock market. When a DTC is having to tell trading platforms to halt trading as they don’t even have the resources to handle it, that’s not tiny.

This is just beginning of something much bigger that can happen.

I would say it’s incredibly ignorant to claim this to be tiny, especially when you consider how haphazard it has been and how quickly it is growing by the day. Some of these guys are doing YouTube and Twitch streams to educate each other and figure out what to target.

Give it a year or 2 and you may have an incredibly efficient movement(s) manipulating stock markets in some incredible ways

[Tsepz_GP]

I am missing the whole David versus Goliath part of this debate.

Hedge funds invest OUR money (as part of a properly managed balanced portfolio). And was it NOT correct to be shorting Gamespot - a company that was most likely on its way out?

The Reddit users weren't trying to be heroes. They were trying to work the system to make themselves rich. I have no problem with that, good for them. But they didn't do it for me, or for anyone else.

I don’t think anyone said they are doing it for anyone or trying to be heroes?

But the fact that they found a way to band together against hedge funds is a major wake up call for many.

They were/are absolutely haphazard about it, millions of them jumping to other stocks etc...

They are now focusing on Silver while others are still on GME and AMC.

This thing is growing incredibly fast, all you need is a few million of them to begin a more sophisticated movement and target against any particular stock, for whatever reason.

[Chuck Finley69]

Have you seen what is going on with Silver right now?

Considering how haphazardly the Redditors did what they did, all you need to is a more sophisticated network to organize something that has more sinister reasoning behind it. For how badly they did this they managed to cause some pretty significant damage and expose some glaring issues with the stock market. When a DTC is having to tell trading platforms to halt trading as they don’t even have the resources to handle it, that’s not tiny.

This is just beginning of something much bigger that can happen.

I would say it’s incredibly ignorant to claim this to be tiny, especially when you consider how haphazard it has been and how quickly it is growing by the day. Some of these guys are doing YouTube and Twitch streams to educate each other and figure out what to target.

Give it a year or 2 and you may have an incredibly efficient movement(s) manipulating stock markets in some incredible ways

Manipulation has been around since Eve gave Adam the Apple/iOS, pun intended...

The amount of assets held by the 1% is why the 1% is demonized as the 1% and history will show the 1% levering or priming the very system. Like the dot-com era, real estate/mortgage bubbles and even the cryptos, it’s the golden rule, the person with the gold makes the rules. Where the little guy contributes is to complain that rules aren’t being enforced across the board. The movements have existed since the Buttonwood Tree but it’s the inefficiency of certain points in time, a millisecond, where the HFT make their money. So efficiencies of the movement contradicts the inefficiency techniques of exploitation.

It’s why the markets are literally self-correcting and let’s not forget in some aspects zero-sum game as we’re not creating wealth but a redistribution mechanism. It’s also why things revert into different tangible assets over time.

[Tsepz_GP]

Manipulation has been around since Eve gave Adam the Apple/iOS, pun intended...

The amount of assets held by the 1% is why the 1% is demonized as the 1% and history will show the 1% levering or priming the very system. Like the dot-com era, real estate/mortgage bubbles and even the cryptos, it’s the golden rule, the person with the gold makes the rules. Where the little guy contributes is to complain that rules aren’t being enforced across the board. The movements have existed since the Buttonwood Tree but it’s the inefficiency of certain points in time, a millisecond, where the HFT make their money. So efficiencies of the movement contradicts the inefficiency techniques of exploitation.

It’s why the markets are literally self-correcting and let’s not forget in some aspects zero-sum game as we’re not creating wealth but a redistribution mechanism. It’s also why things revert into different tangible assets over time.

History doesn’t contain the “little guys” (we still don’t even have a full profile of these people) moving en masse and using the establishments mechanisms against them in such organized yet incredibly disorganized manner...

Like I said, this is the beginning of something much bigger.

If this time last year I told you that a bunch of Reddit users would lead to a hedge fund sustaining 53% in losses would you have believed me?
Highly doubt it, the lack of predictability and control around this is the big concern, even the Redditors don’t know have a full idea of what the next move is, they have splintered into multiple movements, we also don’t have a full picture of who exactly took part in this, the media have an “idea” and my favourite part is that there is still this belief that it’s a whole lot of clueless kids using stimulus money.

Whatever the outcome this is truly entertaining.

[app_Developer]

I am missing the whole David versus Goliath part of this debate.

Hedge funds invest OUR money (as part of a properly managed balanced portfolio). And was it NOT correct to be shorting Gamespot - a company that was most likely on its way out?

The Reddit users weren't trying to be heroes. They were trying to work the system to make themselves rich. I have no problem with that, good for them. But they didn't do it for me, or for anyone else.

^^^ this!!

A lot of ordinary people have money in the big hedge funds. It's a lot of pension and retirement money.

Very few ordinary people benefit from massive distortion in pricing that comes from things like the reddit stunt.

Populism should be about most people, right?