NewEdge Advisors LLC Decreases Stock Position in BlackRock $BLK

NewEdge Advisors LLC decreased its position in BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) by 0.6% in the 1st quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 71,807 shares of the asset manager’s stock after selling 456 shares during the period. NewEdge Advisors LLC’s holdings in BlackRock were worth $69,057,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Legal & General Group Plc grew its position in shares of BlackRock by 0.8% during the fourth quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 920,578 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $985,331,000 after buying an additional 7,457 shares in the last quarter. TCV Trust & Wealth Management Inc. acquired a new stake in BlackRock in the fourth quarter valued at $20,279,000. Texas Yale Capital Corp. boosted its stake in BlackRock by 32.2% during the 4th quarter. Texas Yale Capital Corp. now owns 5,764 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $6,169,000 after acquiring an additional 1,405 shares during the last quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans boosted its stake in BlackRock by 94.6% during the 4th quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans now owns 26,828 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $28,720,000 after acquiring an additional 13,040 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Capital Research Global Investors grew its holdings in BlackRock by 0.3% during the 4th quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 3,838,937 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $4,108,968,000 after acquiring an additional 12,019 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 80.69% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms have recently weighed in on BLK. Zacks Research raised shares of BlackRock from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, July 20th. Barclays increased their price target on shares of BlackRock from $1,340.00 to $1,450.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 15th. The Goldman Sachs Group reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $1,389.00 price objective on shares of BlackRock in a report on Thursday, July 16th. UBS Group upped their price objective on BlackRock from $1,270.00 to $1,320.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 16th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets increased their target price on BlackRock from $1,250.00 to $1,300.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, July 17th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fifteen have assigned a Buy rating and one has assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $1,304.29.

BlackRock Stock Down 0.4%

NYSE:BLK opened at $1,128.98 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $174.98 billion, a PE ratio of 26.98, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.28 and a beta of 1.42. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $1,037.16 and a 200-day moving average of $1,041.54. BlackRock has a 52 week low of $917.39 and a 52 week high of $1,219.94. The company has a current ratio of 4.09, a quick ratio of 4.09 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34.

BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 15th. The asset manager reported $13.91 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $12.69 by $1.22. BlackRock had a return on equity of 15.01% and a net margin of 24.09%.The business had revenue of $7.08 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $6.73 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $12.05 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 30.6% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts predict that BlackRock will post 55.63 EPS for the current year.

BlackRock Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, September 22nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, September 8th will be given a $5.73 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, September 8th. This represents a $22.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.0%. BlackRock’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 54.78%.

BlackRock News Summary

Here are the key news stories impacting BlackRock this week:

• Positive Sentiment: BlackRock is promoting model portfolios as a way to bring private-market funds to affluent individual investors. Wider distribution could increase fee-generating assets and strengthen BlackRock’s position in alternatives. Wall Street touts outsourced allocation ploy in bid to market private funds to individuals
• Positive Sentiment: BlackRock is expanding blockchain-based products, including tokenized European money-market funds through JPMorgan’s Kinexys platform. The initiative supports long-term growth in digital assets and institutional liquidity products. BlackRock brings tokenized money market funds to Europe via JPMorgan
• Positive Sentiment: BlackRock is among the validators for Circle’s planned Arc blockchain and intends to deploy its BUIDL digital liquidity fund on the network. The relationship could help accelerate adoption of tokenized securities and reinforce BlackRock’s digital-asset leadership. Blueprint for a Banking Fortress: Circle Redraws the Map
• Neutral Sentiment: BlackRock will conduct a one-for-three reverse split of its iShares Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHA). The action raises the per-share price but does not change investors’ proportional ownership or the fund’s underlying value. BlackRock’s Ethereum ETF To Undergo 1-For-3 Reverse Split
• Negative Sentiment: BlackRock TCP Capital Corp. (NASDAQ: TCPC), an affiliated business-development company, is transferring approximately $523 million of loans—nearly half of its debt investments—to a Pantheon-backed fund while cutting leverage and reviewing strategic options. The move may reduce risk, but the scale of the restructuring highlights stress in private credit and could weigh on sentiment toward BlackRock’s alternatives platform. BlackRock Offloads $523 Million in Loans to Rescue Troubled Private Credit Fund

BlackRock Profile

BlackRock, Inc is a global investment management firm that provides a broad range of products and services to institutional, intermediary and individual investors. Its core activities include portfolio management across active and index strategies, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) under the iShares brand, fixed income, equity and multi-asset solutions, as well as alternatives such as private equity, real estate and infrastructure. The firm also offers cash management and liquidity solutions and retirement-focused products designed for defined contribution and defined benefit investors.

In addition to traditional investment management, BlackRock is known for its technology and risk management capabilities, most prominently its Aladdin platform, which combines portfolio management, trading and risk analytics and is used both internally and licensed to external clients.