BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE:BLK) Receives Average Recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from Brokerages

Shares of BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE:BLK) have received an average recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the fourteen brokerages that are covering the firm, MarketBeat reports. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and ten have given a buy recommendation to the company. The average 1 year target price among brokerages that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $785.73.

Several brokerages recently commented on BLK. TD Cowen upgraded BlackRock from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and upped their target price for the company from $819.00 to $938.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 16th. UBS Group increased their price target on BlackRock from $720.00 to $818.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 10th. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their price target on BlackRock from $719.00 to $793.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, November 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered BlackRock from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $708.00 price target on the stock. in a report on Friday, December 15th. Finally, BNP Paribas upgraded BlackRock from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $885.00 price target on the stock in a report on Tuesday, December 12th.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, insider Marc D. Comerchero sold 450 shares of BlackRock stock in a transaction on Monday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $785.11, for a total transaction of $353,299.50. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,975 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,691,032.25. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In other news, insider Marc D. Comerchero sold 450 shares of BlackRock stock in a transaction on Monday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $785.11, for a total transaction of $353,299.50. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,975 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,691,032.25. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Laurence Fink sold 30,978 shares of BlackRock stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $809.92, for a total value of $25,089,701.76. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 414,146 shares in the company, valued at $335,425,128.32. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 100,511 shares of company stock valued at $71,864,028 in the last three months. 1.06% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On BlackRock

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in BLK. Fairfield Bush & CO. bought a new stake in BlackRock in the 1st quarter valued at about $115,000. United Bank raised its stake in BlackRock by 17.1% in the 1st quarter. United Bank now owns 1,287 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $983,000 after acquiring an additional 188 shares during the period. Panagora Asset Management Inc. raised its stake in BlackRock by 2.6% in the 1st quarter. Panagora Asset Management Inc. now owns 1,978 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $1,512,000 after acquiring an additional 51 shares during the period. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC raised its stake in BlackRock by 35.4% in the 1st quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC now owns 1,025 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $783,000 after acquiring an additional 268 shares during the period. Finally, Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. raised its stake in BlackRock by 11.7% in the 1st quarter. Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. now owns 1,452 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $1,110,000 after acquiring an additional 152 shares during the period. 80.69% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

BlackRock Stock Up 0.5 %

Shares of BlackRock stock opened at $820.21 on Wednesday. BlackRock has a one year low of $596.18 and a one year high of $845.00. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32, a current ratio of 3.48 and a quick ratio of 3.48. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $803.63 and its 200 day moving average is $741.11. The firm has a market cap of $122.16 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.47, a PEG ratio of 1.82 and a beta of 1.37.

BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) last announced its earnings results on Friday, January 12th. The asset manager reported $9.66 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $8.84 by $0.82. BlackRock had a return on equity of 14.74% and a net margin of 30.81%. The company had revenue of $4.63 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $4.65 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $8.93 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 6.8% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts anticipate that BlackRock will post 39.73 EPS for the current year.

BlackRock Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 22nd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, March 7th were issued a dividend of $5.10 per share. This represents a $20.40 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.49%. This is an increase from BlackRock’s previous quarterly dividend of $5.00. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, March 6th. BlackRock’s payout ratio is currently 55.88%.

BlackRock Company Profile

BlackRock, Inc is a publicly owned investment manager. The firm primarily provides its services to institutional, intermediary, and individual investors including corporate, public, union, and industry pension plans, insurance companies, third-party mutual funds, endowments, public institutions, governments, foundations, charities, sovereign wealth funds, corporations, official institutions, and banks.