Block (NYSE:XYZ) Cut to “Hold” at Wall Street Zen

Wall Street Zen lowered shares of Block (NYSE:XYZ) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a report published on Saturday morning.

A number of other research firms have also recently commented on XYZ. Truist Financial raised shares of Block from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their target price for the company from $72.00 to $77.00 in a research report on Wednesday, March 18th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “hold (c)” rating on shares of Block in a report on Monday, December 29th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods reduced their price target on Block from $90.00 to $85.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, January 2nd. Arete Research upgraded Block from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 3rd. Finally, HSBC raised Block from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $70.00 to $77.00 in a research report on Tuesday, March 3rd. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-six have issued a Buy rating, eight have issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $81.91.

Block Price Performance

XYZ opened at $57.04 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $34.17 billion, a PE ratio of 27.16, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.96 and a beta of 2.64. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.26, a current ratio of 2.20 and a quick ratio of 2.20. The business’s 50-day moving average is $58.99 and its two-hundred day moving average is $65.87. Block has a 1 year low of $44.27 and a 1 year high of $82.50.

Block (NYSE:XYZ) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 26th. The technology company reported $0.65 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.26 by $0.39. Block had a net margin of 5.40% and a return on equity of 6.66%. The business had revenue of $6.25 billion during the quarter. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.71 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 3.6% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts anticipate that Block will post 2.54 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity at Block

In other Block news, CAO Ajmere Dale sold 1,173 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $65.09, for a total transaction of $76,350.57. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer owned 98,412 shares in the company, valued at approximately $6,405,637.08. This represents a 1.18% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Owen Britton Jennings sold 3,555 shares of Block stock in a transaction on Tuesday, March 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $63.41, for a total transaction of $225,422.55. Following the sale, the insider owned 231,262 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $14,664,323.42. The trade was a 1.51% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold a total of 20,352 shares of company stock worth $1,165,720 in the last quarter. 10.49% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in XYZ. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in Block by 23.1% during the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 67,626,485 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $4,887,366,000 after purchasing an additional 12,709,824 shares during the period. Sands Capital Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Block during the 2nd quarter valued at about $702,446,000. Dragoneer Investment Group LLC acquired a new position in shares of Block in the 2nd quarter valued at about $627,233,000. Ameriprise Financial Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Block in the 2nd quarter valued at about $535,305,000. Finally, Loomis Sayles & Co. L P purchased a new stake in shares of Block in the second quarter worth about $515,857,000. Hedge funds and other 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.