Evercore ISI Boosts BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) Price Target to $945.00

BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) had its target price boosted by Evercore ISI from $920.00 to $945.00 in a research report released on Thursday morning, Benzinga reports. Evercore ISI currently has an outperform rating on the asset manager’s stock.

Several other brokerages also recently commented on BLK. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft lifted their target price on shares of BlackRock from $912.00 to $937.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Thursday, August 15th. Argus raised their target price on BlackRock from $880.00 to $910.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Tuesday, July 16th. Citigroup lifted their price target on BlackRock from $920.00 to $930.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 16th. UBS Group dropped their price objective on shares of BlackRock from $842.00 to $837.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, July 10th. Finally, Barclays started coverage on BlackRock in a report on Tuesday, August 27th. They issued an overweight rating and a $985.00 price target for the company. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eleven have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, BlackRock presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $883.13.

BlackRock Trading Down 1.1 %

Shares of NYSE BLK opened at $866.92 on Thursday. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $848.57 and a 200 day simple moving average of $811.87. BlackRock has a 52 week low of $596.18 and a 52 week high of $903.46. The stock has a market cap of $128.82 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.03, a PEG ratio of 1.97 and a beta of 1.30. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37, a quick ratio of 5.06 and a current ratio of 5.06.

BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) last released its quarterly earnings results on Monday, July 15th. The asset manager reported $10.36 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $9.96 by $0.40. The business had revenue of $4.81 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $4.85 billion. BlackRock had a net margin of 32.36% and a return on equity of 15.44%. BlackRock’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $9.28 EPS. On average, research analysts predict that BlackRock will post 41.34 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

BlackRock Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, September 23rd. Investors of record on Monday, September 9th will be given a $5.10 dividend. This represents a $20.40 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.35%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, September 9th. BlackRock’s payout ratio is currently 51.84%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other BlackRock news, Director Pamela Daley sold 1,531 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, August 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $842.08, for a total transaction of $1,289,224.48. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 5,732 shares in the company, valued at $4,826,802.56. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other BlackRock news, Director Pamela Daley sold 1,531 shares of BlackRock stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $842.08, for a total transaction of $1,289,224.48. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 5,732 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,826,802.56. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director Mark Wiedman sold 12,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $900.00, for a total value of $10,800,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 6,480 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,832,000. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 93,042 shares of company stock worth $79,387,117 over the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 0.90% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of BlackRock

A number of institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of BLK. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in BlackRock by 2.3% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 13,182,262 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $10,990,052,000 after purchasing an additional 292,017 shares during the period. Capital Research Global Investors grew its position in shares of BlackRock by 11.1% during the 1st quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 4,354,236 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $3,630,127,000 after buying an additional 435,358 shares during the period. Capital World Investors increased its stake 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 valued at $2,853,517,000 after acquiring an additional 1,279,952 shares in the last quarter. Capital International Investors lifted its position in shares of BlackRock by 2.4% during the 4th quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 2,471,621 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $2,006,490,000 after acquiring an additional 58,681 shares during the period. Finally, Norges Bank bought a new position in BlackRock during the fourth quarter worth $1,812,920,000. Institutional investors own 80.69% of the company’s stock.

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.