BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE:BLK) Declares Quarterly Dividend of $5.10

BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE:BLK) declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, November 20th,RTT News reports. Investors of record on Thursday, December 5th will be paid a dividend of 5.10 per share by the asset manager on Monday, December 23rd. This represents a $20.40 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.99%.

BlackRock has increased its dividend payment by an average of 11.3% per year over the last three years and has raised its dividend every year for the last 15 years. BlackRock has a payout ratio of 41.8% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect BlackRock to earn $48.11 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $20.40 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 42.4%.

BlackRock Price Performance

BlackRock stock traded down $4.71 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $1,023.40. 161,342 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 573,315. The company has a quick ratio of 5.06, a current ratio of 5.06 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37. The business has a fifty day moving average of $975.38 and a 200 day moving average of $875.55. BlackRock has a 1-year low of $718.72 and a 1-year high of $1,068.34. The company has a market capitalization of $158.50 billion, a PE ratio of 25.38, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.87 and a beta of 1.30.

BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) last announced its earnings results on Friday, October 11th. The asset manager reported $11.46 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $10.42 by $1.04. The company had revenue of $5.20 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.03 billion. BlackRock had a return on equity of 15.52% and a net margin of 31.37%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 14.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company posted $10.91 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that BlackRock will post 43.17 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Transactions at BlackRock

In related news, Director Mark Wiedman sold 12,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, August 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $900.00, for a total transaction of $10,800,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 6,480 shares in the company, valued at $5,832,000. This represents a 64.94 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. 0.90% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages have issued reports on BLK. StockNews.com began coverage on BlackRock in a report on Wednesday, November 13th. They set a “hold” rating on the stock. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft raised their target price on BlackRock from $1,105.00 to $1,133.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, November 11th. Morgan Stanley raised their target price on BlackRock from $1,150.00 to $1,245.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, October 14th. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price objective on BlackRock from $1,000.00 to $1,070.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 9th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on BlackRock from $864.00 to $914.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, October 21st. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eleven have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $1,019.62.

About BlackRock

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.