Blackberry’s Double-Digit Gain Drives D20

Led by Blackberry’s (BBRY) and Valeo’s (VLEEY) double-digit percentage gains, the Driverless Transportation (D20) Weekly Stock Index jumped nearly 3 percent, closing the week at 155.17. That’s three weeks in a row the D20 has soundly beat the Dow Industrials and the S&P 500. Both the major indexes had down weeks.

Blackberry’s stock price jumped 10.5 percent on news that it released its second Android-based phone called the DTEK50. Although many in the market continue to plead with Blackberry to get out of the phone handset market, the DTEK50 is actually a step in the right direction. The DTEK50 was designed by Blackberry but it’s the first phone that Blackberry had manufactured by someone else.

One piece of bad news for Blackberry, Apple has hired the former head of Blackberry’s automotive software group and the founder of QNX for its driverless car project. What is this going to mean for Blackberry’s QNX, one of the leaders in the Automotive Operating System Market?

The D20 price loser last week was Ford (F), dropping $1.18, or 8.5 percent, to close the week at $12.66. Ford’s drop was driven by a 3 percent decline in Q2 earnings, a drop unexpected by market analysts.

Visit the Driverless Transportation D20 Stock Index page to learn more about it and its component stocks.

Up and Comers:

Fleet productivity firm Automile raised $6.2 million in a funding round led by Jason Lemkin’s SaaStr Fund. Automile calls itself an IoT company that uses the cloud to help fleets lower fuel consumption, track mileage and increase productivity. Lemkin may be best known for founding electronic signature house EchoSign.