BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) has been struggling to make a comeback, and investors have been skeptical. That could be changing, however, as the latest measurement of short interest in the stock reveals a significant decline.
BlackBerry short interest remains high
In spite of the significant percentage drop, there are still plenty of BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) shares sold short. According to NASDAQ, there were more than 101.3 million shares of the stock sold short at the end of April. As of May 15, however, that number had fallen below 94 million shares. That amounts to a 7.4% decline, and yet more than 19% of BlackBerry’s shares are still sold short.
With an average daily share volume of between 8.6 million and 8.8 million, however, the number of days is still very high, at 10.7 days. That’s still a full day’s drop from the end of April when the number of days to cover was 11.7.
Short interest in of BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) has been dropping steadily since last year. In July 2013, it went as high as 184.4 million shares being sold short. At that time, however, the number of days to cover was only 5.4, as the average daily trading volume was much higher at about 34.3 million shares.
Will BlackBerry really turn around?
Right now of BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) CEO John Chen is in the fight of his life as he tries to turn around the struggling Canadian company, but he remains optimistic. As InvestorPlace writer Tom Taulli notes, turnarounds are rather rare in the technology industry. However, Chen has already been successful with turning around Sybase, which had seemed completely lost in the battle with Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL).
Chen’s tactic at Sybase was to go after the enterprise mobile software market—a strategy that’s similar to what he’s attempting at BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB). The key here is the word “enterprise,” as more specifically, Chen is targeting the enterprise mobile technology market at BlackBerry rather than mobile software.
