BlackBerry Rallies Hard While Shorts Stay Comfortable

BlackBerry heads into the final stretch of October with its stock up nearly 8% on Tuesday alone, yet the lending market is barely flinching, a split that tells you something about who is driving this move.

The stock closed at CAD 12.45 on October 20, up 3% on the week and nearly 12% over the past month. That is a meaningful run for a name that spent much of 2025 rebuilding credibility around its QNX and Secure Communications businesses. The next earnings date is December 17, leaving six weeks for the setup to evolve.

Short interest is rising modestly but is nowhere near alarming territory. Bears hold roughly 3% of the free float, up about 10% over the past month in share terms. The FINRA fortnightly data puts official short shares at 19.5 million with 5.4 days to cover, a number that suggests no acute squeeze pressure. Borrow costs confirm this: the cost to borrow has eased about 5% on the week to 0.47%, well within the low-cost band and broadly stable since September. Availability is extremely loose at 438%, meaning there are more than four times as many shares available to lend as are currently borrowed. That ratio has actually tightened from around 760% in early September as short interest crept higher, but it remains far from any level that would challenge short sellers' ability to maintain positions. The ORTEX short score of 38.5 sits in the lower half of the range, consistent with a modest and uncrowded short book.

The most notable ownership story on the register is Prem Watsa's 13D position. Watsa, the founder of Fairfax Financial, filed a Schedule 13D/A in May 2026 disclosing a stake that had slipped from 6.1% to 4.5%, putting it at 26.3 million shares. A 13D signals activist-level intent, and Watsa's history with BlackBerry means the market watches his moves closely. That disclosure carries the standard caveat: 13D/G stakes are as-last-disclosed around the 5% threshold, and a holder who drops below 5% may file no further update. T. Rowe Price disclosed a fresh position of 32.9 million shares as of September 30, the most recent large institutional addition on the register. D.E. Shaw and Two Sigma also built or rebuilt positions as of June 30, adding a quant-flow dimension to recent buying.

Insider activity in October has been routine rather than directional. The CEO of the Secure Communications division, the CFO, and the CLO all exercised options and sold a portion of the resulting shares on October 9, collectively netting just over CAD 368,000 on the open market. These are textbook same-day-sale transactions tied to option exercises, not discretionary purchases, and the 90-day net insider position of roughly minus 164,000 shares and minus USD 1.5 million in value reflects that mechanics, not a bearish signal. None of the trades were made under a 10b5-1 plan.

Valuation sits at an EV/EBITDA of around 31x, which has contracted slightly over the past month even as the stock rallied, suggesting earnings estimates have moved up alongside the price. A P/E in the mid-30s and an earnings yield of about 2.6% are consistent with the market pricing in continued progress on the software transition rather than the old handset-era cheapness. Correlated peers have had a rougher week: GRRR fell 21% over seven days and SVCO dropped 11%, making BlackBerry's relative strength all the more notable. The December earnings print will be the next real test of whether the guidance range flagged in recent quarters, revenue of CAD 616 to 636 million and adjusted EBITDA of CAD 141 to 158 million for FY27, holds up against what the market is now paying for.