BlackBerry Rally Stalls on COO Buzz

A former Cisco exec was appointed new COO of BlackBerry

Mobile phone name BlackBerry Limited (NYSE:BB) just appointed Bryan Palma, a former Cisco (CSCO) senior vice president, as its new president and chief operating officer. In response, the shares of BB are slightly lower, down 1.1% at $8.01 -- set to break the equity's three-day winning streak.

BlackBerry just endured its worst quarter since 2012 -- a 37.5% loss -- and hit a two-year low of $6.57 on Dec. 24. Since then, however, BB shares have rallied 22%, and went on a five-week winning streak -- their longest since mid-2017. The shares on Friday topped their 50-day moving average for the first time since October.

Analysts have been wary, despite the security's rebound. Currently, just one of seven analysts considers BB worthy of a "buy" or better rating. However, the consensus 12-month target price of $10.31 still represents a roughly 28% premium to current levels.

Conversely, the stock's Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio (SOIR) of 0.26 sits in just the 8th percentile of its annual range, suggesting that short-term options players have rarely been more call-heavy during the past 12 months.Plus, data from the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX) says that BlackBerry's 50-day call/put volume ratio of 7.28 is in the 68th percentile of its annual range. This indicates that over seven calls have been bought to open for every put in the past 10 weeks.