BlackBerry Announces Company Seeking Strategic Alternatives; Shares up Roughly 7.5%

Just before the 8:00 rush this morning, BlackBerry

announced it was seeking "strategic alternatives", which could include sales of assets or possibly going private. Shares were halted leading into the report, and following their opening at 8:30, they spiked as much as 9.4 percent, and proceeded to trade in a very volatile fashion. There also seemed to be some arbitrage going on between shares on the Toronto Stock Exchange and those on the NASDAQ. Speculation has surrounded BlackBerry since a report came out on Friday from Reuters that the company was considering going private. Shares of BlackBerry were up 7.48 percent to $14.48 leading into the market open Monday.