Owen Britton Jennings Sells 1,317 Shares of Block (NYSE:XYZ) Stock

Block, Inc. (NYSE:XYZ) insider Owen Britton Jennings sold 1,317 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $81.48, for a total transaction of $107,309.16. Following the sale, the insider owned 460,128 shares in the company, valued at $37,491,229.44. This trade represents a 0.29% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan.

Owen Britton Jennings also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Friday, August 21st, Owen Britton Jennings sold 584 shares of Block stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $80.04, for a total transaction of $46,743.36.

Block Trading Down 1.0%

Shares of NYSE:XYZ traded down $0.79 during midday trading on Monday, reaching $81.38. The company had a trading volume of 4,068,129 shares, compared to its average volume of 4,955,299. Block, Inc. has a 1-year low of $48.21 and a 1-year high of $86.75. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $78.89 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $69.40. The firm has a market cap of $48.89 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 145.31, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.92 and a beta of 2.53. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.26, a quick ratio of 2.21 and a current ratio of 2.21.

Block (NYSE:XYZ) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 5th. The technology company reported $1.02 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.48 by $0.54. The firm had revenue of $6.62 billion for the quarter. Block had a return on equity of 8.10% and a net margin of 1.43%.The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 9.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.62 earnings per share. Block has set its FY 2026 guidance at 4.020-4.020 EPS and its Q3 2026 guidance at 1.020-1.020 EPS. Research analysts predict that Block, Inc. will post 2.69 earnings per share for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

XYZ has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Zacks Research downgraded shares of Block from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 30th. TD Cowen raised their price objective on shares of Block from $101.00 to $105.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 6th. BMO Capital Markets boosted their target price on Block from $78.00 to $85.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 22nd. Morgan Stanley reissued an “overweight” rating on shares of Block in a research note on Wednesday, August 5th. Finally, BTIG Research increased their price objective on shares of Block from $90.00 to $100.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 6th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-eight have assigned a Buy rating and eight have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $95.23.

Institutional Trading of Block

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. California State Teachers Retirement System boosted its stake in Block by 6,740.0% in the second quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System now owns 54,852,088 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $4,168,759,000 after buying an additional 54,050,161 shares in the last quarter. Greenland Capital Management LP bought a new position in shares of Block during the second quarter valued at $519,000. Ameritas Advisory Services LLC acquired a new position in Block during the 2nd quarter worth about $334,000. Wedmont Private Capital lifted its stake in shares of Block by 14.2% in the second quarter. Wedmont Private Capital now owns 8,506 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $658,000 after acquiring an additional 1,058 shares during the period. Finally, HB Wealth Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Block by 14.1% in the 2nd quarter. HB Wealth Management LLC now owns 18,238 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $1,386,000 after purchasing an additional 2,253 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 70.44% 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.