Louisiana State Employees Retirement System Acquires Shares of 27,900 Block, Inc. $XYZ

Louisiana State Employees Retirement System bought a new stake in shares of Block, Inc. (NYSE:XYZ) in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm bought 27,900 shares of the technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,679,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Baird Financial Group Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Block during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $1,866,000. Brown Advisory Inc. purchased a new stake in Block in the second quarter worth $516,000. Jump Financial LLC bought a new stake in shares of Block in the second quarter valued at $385,000. Federated Hermes Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Block during the 2nd quarter valued at $53,000. Finally, Cerity Partners LLC purchased a new position in shares of Block during the 2nd quarter valued at $1,861,000. 70.44% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

XYZ has been the topic of a number of research reports. Rosenblatt Securities set a $100.00 price objective on Block in a research note on Tuesday. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods lifted their target price on shares of Block from $85.00 to $90.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, May 8th. Oppenheimer cut shares of Block from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research note on Tuesday. Zacks Research raised shares of Block from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, June 10th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets initiated coverage on shares of Block in a research note on Tuesday. They issued an “outperform” rating for the company. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-six have assigned a Buy rating, seven have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $87.09.

Block Stock Up 1.5%

Shares of XYZ stock opened at $77.13 on Thursday. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $71.90 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $65.46. The stock has a market cap of $45.91 billion, a P/E ratio of 60.26, a P/E/G ratio of 0.96 and a beta of 2.54. Block, Inc. has a 12 month low of $48.21 and a 12 month high of $82.50. The company has a current ratio of 1.99, a quick ratio of 1.99 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.26.

Block (NYSE:XYZ) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 7th. The technology company reported $0.85 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.30 by $0.55. Block had a return on equity of 7.02% and a net margin of 3.30%.The firm had revenue of $6.06 billion during the quarter. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $0.56 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 4.9% on a year-over-year basis. Block has set its Q2 2026 guidance at 0.860-0.860 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 3.850-3.850 EPS. On average, research analysts expect that Block, Inc. will post 2.48 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity

In related news, CFO Amrita Ahuja sold 30,919 shares of Block stock in a transaction on Tuesday, April 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $75.00, for a total transaction of $2,318,925.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer owned 500,816 shares in the company, valued at approximately $37,561,200. The trade was a 5.81% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, Director Anthony Mathew Eisen sold 135,750 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, June 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $76.81, for a total transaction of $10,426,957.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 2,032,990 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $156,153,961.90. This represents a 6.26% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold a total of 249,773 shares of company stock valued at $18,725,016 in the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 11.37% of the company’s stock.

About Block

Block (NYSE:XYZ) is a financial technology company that builds products and services to facilitate electronic payments, commerce, and consumer finance. Its principal business lines include a seller-focused ecosystem that provides point-of-sale hardware and software, payment processing, invoicing, payroll and lending services, and a consumer-facing platform that offers peer-to-peer payments, banking-like features, and investing. Block’s portfolio also encompasses music streaming and buy-now-pay-later capabilities through businesses acquired to broaden its reach beyond core payments.

The company was founded as Square in 2009 by Jack Dorsey and Jim McKelvey and later rebranded to Block to reflect a diversified set of businesses across payments, consumer finance, and emerging technologies.