Gibson Capital LLC Takes $178,000 Position in BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE:BLK)

Gibson Capital LLC purchased a new position in shares of BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE:BLK) during the 1st quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor purchased 213 shares of the asset manager’s stock, valued at approximately $178,000.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of BLK. Abacus Planning Group Inc. raised its stake in shares of BlackRock by 4.0% in the 4th quarter. Abacus Planning Group Inc. now owns 334 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $271,000 after acquiring an additional 13 shares during the period. Knuff & Co LLC increased its holdings in BlackRock by 48.1% in the 4th quarter. Knuff & Co LLC now owns 40 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $32,000 after purchasing an additional 13 shares in the last quarter. Everhart Financial Group Inc. raised its position in BlackRock by 3.2% in the fourth quarter. Everhart Financial Group Inc. now owns 450 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $365,000 after purchasing an additional 14 shares during the period. Spreng Capital Management Inc. lifted its stake in shares of BlackRock by 1.1% during the fourth quarter. Spreng Capital Management Inc. now owns 1,329 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $1,079,000 after purchasing an additional 14 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Magellan Asset Management Ltd boosted its position in shares of BlackRock by 3.6% in the fourth quarter. Magellan Asset Management Ltd now owns 404 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $328,000 after buying an additional 14 shares during the period. 80.69% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts recently commented on the company. UBS Group raised their target price on BlackRock from $818.00 to $850.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, April 12th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $930.00 target price (up from $918.00) on shares of BlackRock in a research report on Friday, April 5th. 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 research note on Tuesday, April 2nd. Finally, Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on shares of BlackRock from $1,013.00 to $1,025.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, April 15th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, BlackRock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $845.42.

BlackRock Stock Up 0.8 %

BLK stock traded up $6.19 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $787.32. 769,459 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 564,991. The company has a market capitalization of $117.00 billion, a PE ratio of 20.01, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.63 and a beta of 1.34. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $779.33 and a 200 day simple moving average of $792.90. The company has a current ratio of 5.32, a quick ratio of 5.32 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.35. BlackRock, Inc. has a twelve month low of $596.18 and a twelve month high of $845.00.

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

BlackRock Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared 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 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.59%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, June 7th. BlackRock’s dividend payout ratio is currently 51.84%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other BlackRock news, CEO Laurence Fink sold 30,978 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, May 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $807.29, for a total transaction of $25,008,229.62. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 383,168 shares in the company, valued at $309,327,694.72. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other 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 transaction of $25,008,229.62. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 383,168 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $309,327,694.72. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, Director Mark Wiedman sold 9,000 shares of the 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 sale, the director now owns 6,480 shares in the company, valued at $5,151,600. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.90% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

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.