What happened
Shares of BlackBerry (BB -3.14%), a software company focused on enterprise and government security solutions, rose as much as 14% in early trading on Friday. As of 10:39 a.m. EDT, the stock was up 11%.
So what
BlackBerry hasn't released any noteworthy news that could justify today's jump. There weren't any analyst upgrades or price target revisions, either. That makes it likely that the double-digit jump is simply a relief rally from the stock's recent beatdown.
BlackBerry has been hit so hard over the last few months that its share price was down by more than 50% since the start of 2020 just a few days ago. The stock is still down more than 40% year to date even if you include today's jump.
The picture looks even worse if you zoom out a bit further. Over the past decade, BackBerry's stock has fallen by more than 95%.
Image source: Getty Images.
A lot of the recent selling activity is linked to the COVID-19-induced bear market. Lots of technology stocks have been hit extremely hard in the downturn.
Now what
It might be tempting to view BlackBerry as a falling knife that should be avoided all costs, but this company has undergone a transformation in recent years. Nearly all of its revenue is now generated from software and services, which are much more predictable and profitable than its legacy hardware sales.
That doesn't mean that BlackBerry is knocking the cover off of the ball. A lot of its recent revenue growth is attributable to acquisitions, and competitors like CrowdStrike are gaining strength.
BlackBerry recently announced that it will be reporting its full-year fiscal 2019 earnings on March 31. Value investors will want to tune in to get a better sense of whether this company is a bargain at the moment or a value trap.
