American National Bank & Trust Co. VA Makes New $1.08 Million Investment in BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE:BLK)

American National Bank & Trust Co. VA bought a new position in shares of BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE:BLK) during the 1st quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund bought 1,293 shares of the asset manager’s stock, valued at approximately $1,078,000.

Several other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in BLK. Capital Research Global Investors boosted its position in shares of BlackRock by 23.7% in the 4th quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 3,918,878 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $3,181,346,000 after buying an additional 749,654 shares in the last quarter. Capital World Investors boosted its position in shares of BlackRock by 57.3% in the 4th quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 3,514,999 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $2,853,517,000 after buying an additional 1,279,952 shares in the last quarter. Morgan Stanley boosted its position in shares of BlackRock by 3.2% in the 3rd quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 3,369,035 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $2,178,048,000 after buying an additional 104,844 shares in the last quarter. Capital International Investors boosted its position in shares of BlackRock by 2.4% in the 4th quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 2,471,621 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $2,006,490,000 after buying an additional 58,681 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank purchased a new position in BlackRock in the 4th quarter valued at about $1,812,920,000. 80.69% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have issued reports on BLK. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their target price on shares of BlackRock from $742.00 to $767.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, April 2nd. Morgan Stanley upped their target price on shares of BlackRock from $1,013.00 to $1,025.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, April 15th. UBS Group upped their target price on shares of BlackRock from $818.00 to $850.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, April 12th. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $915.00 target price on shares of BlackRock in a report on Tuesday. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, BlackRock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $844.17.

BlackRock Trading Down 0.0 %

Shares of NYSE BLK traded down $0.01 on Thursday, reaching $789.12. 250,799 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 506,332. BlackRock, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $596.18 and a fifty-two week high of $845.00. The company has a 50 day moving average of $780.75 and a 200 day moving average of $792.72. The company has a current ratio of 5.32, a quick ratio of 5.32 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.35. The stock has a market capitalization of $117.26 billion, a PE ratio of 20.05, a P/E/G ratio of 1.63 and a beta of 1.32.

BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Friday, April 12th. The asset manager reported $9.81 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $9.42 by $0.39. The company had revenue of $4.73 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $4.65 billion. BlackRock had a net margin of 32.26% and a return on equity of 15.24%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 11.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $7.93 EPS. On average, equities research analysts forecast that BlackRock, Inc. will post 41.25 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

BlackRock Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, June 24th. Investors of record on Friday, June 7th were given a dividend of $5.10 per share. This represents a $20.40 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.59%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, June 7th. BlackRock’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 51.84%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other BlackRock news, CEO Laurence Fink sold 30,978 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, May 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $807.29, for a total value of $25,008,229.62. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 383,168 shares in the company, valued at approximately $309,327,694.72. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In other BlackRock news, CEO Laurence Fink sold 30,978 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, May 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $807.29, for a total value of $25,008,229.62. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 383,168 shares in the company, valued at approximately $309,327,694.72. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, Director Mark Wiedman sold 9,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, May 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $795.00, for a total value of $7,155,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 6,480 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,151,600. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Corporate insiders own 0.90% of the company’s stock.

BlackRock 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.