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How did BlackBerry Become a Meme Stock?
Like many, I was captivated by the unfolding of the GameStop saga. A demonstration of how everyday investors can move the market. A few other old-school stocks got taken along for the ride, even those without high short interest, a key catalyst for the rally. One of these was BlackBerry. BlackBerry is a nostalgic brand for me, a company that hadn’t crossed my mind for over a decade. So when I kept seeing the name popping up, I was curious to what had happened.
The first posts I could find dates back to Nov 28th 2020, which then cascaded into subsequent posts shortly afterwards spanning a series of popular threads in early December and January, unintentionally tying it with GameStop.
Without reiterating these threads, revenue appears to be lacking while also being dragged down by their old branding. When BlackBerry first announced their partnership with Amazon back in Jan 6th 2020, there was minimal price action. It wasn’t until Dec 1st 2020 where they re-hashed their previous announcement, but this time stating a multi-year agreement which surged interest.
Interestingly, QNX, their backbone in the EV market wasn’t intentionally designed for the automotive space, but rather the mobile market, a quote from Alec Saunders, QNX’s former marketing VP. Although the direct link to his blogpost is now unavailable.