Transamerica Financial Advisors LLC Makes New $1.22 Million Investment in BlackRock $BLK

Transamerica Financial Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The fund acquired 1,271 shares of the asset manager’s stock, valued at approximately $1,223,000.

Several other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in BLK. BlackRock Inc. bought a new position in BlackRock during the 2nd quarter worth $9,747,857,000. State Street Corp lifted its position in shares of BlackRock by 0.5% during the 4th quarter. State Street Corp now owns 6,264,545 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $6,705,193,000 after acquiring an additional 33,752 shares during the period. Corient Private Wealth LLC grew its holdings in shares of BlackRock by 5,190.3% during the 4th quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC now owns 5,490,422 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $5,876,618,000 after purchasing an additional 5,386,640 shares in the last quarter. Temasek Holdings Private Ltd grew its holdings in shares of BlackRock by 4.7% during the 1st quarter. Temasek Holdings Private Ltd now owns 5,330,492 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $5,126,387,000 after purchasing an additional 237,667 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Bank of America Corp DE increased its position in shares of BlackRock by 0.7% in the first quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 5,232,973 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $5,032,603,000 after purchasing an additional 35,069 shares during the period. 80.69% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Key BlackRock News

Here are the key news stories impacting BlackRock this week:

• Positive Sentiment: BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) has processed more than $5 billion in tax-deferred conversions from directly held Bitcoin. Reducing the minimum conversion size from $25 million to $1 million could make the product accessible to more wealthy investors and institutions, potentially supporting assets under management and fee revenue. However, these transactions transfer existing Bitcoin into the ETF rather than representing equivalent new cash inflows. Bitcoin to $100K? BlackRock’s $5B ETF Shift Pulls More BTC Into Wall Street
• Positive Sentiment: Wall Street analysts remain broadly optimistic about BlackRock’s growth prospects and target price, despite the shares’ strong multiyear advance. What Are Wall Street Analysts’ Target Price for BlackRock Stock?
• Neutral Sentiment: BlackRock named Jessica Tan to lead its global product unit, a management change that could influence future product development and distribution but whose financial impact is not yet clear. BlackRock names Jessica Tan to head global product unit
• Neutral Sentiment: The company announced final August cash distributions for the iShares Premium Money Market ETF. The announcement is routine and primarily affects fund investors rather than BlackRock’s corporate earnings. BlackRock Canada Announces Final August Cash Distributions
• Negative Sentiment: Rosen Law Firm said it is investigating potential securities claims involving BlackRock mutual funds, alleging that the company may have issued materially misleading business information. The announcement does not establish wrongdoing, but it introduces potential legal, reputational and financial risk. BlackRock Investor News: Rosen Law Firm Investigation
• Negative Sentiment: One valuation review says BlackRock now trades near fair value on intrinsic estimates and looks expensive on earnings multiples after an approximately 82% three-year return, limiting near-term upside unless earnings and fee growth accelerate. BlackRock Stock Looks Fully Valued After an 82% Run

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts recently weighed in on BLK shares. Morgan Stanley upped their price objective on shares of BlackRock from $1,383.00 to $1,488.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 16th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft restated a “buy” rating and issued a $1,258.00 target price on shares of BlackRock in a research report on Thursday, July 16th. Zacks Research raised shares of BlackRock from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, July 20th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods downgraded shares of BlackRock from a “moderate buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, August 7th. Finally, BNP Paribas Exane raised their target price on BlackRock from $1,300.00 to $1,350.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, June 23rd. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fourteen have issued a Buy rating and two have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, BlackRock currently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $1,311.06.

BlackRock Stock Down 0.2%

Shares of NYSE:BLK opened at $1,174.17 on Thursday. The company has a fifty day moving average of $1,075.18 and a 200-day moving average of $1,045.98. The company has a market capitalization of $181.84 billion, a PE ratio of 28.06, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.30 and a beta of 1.42. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.33, a quick ratio of 3.59 and a current ratio of 3.59. BlackRock has a 52-week low of $917.39 and a 52-week high of $1,219.94.

BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 15th. The asset manager reported $13.91 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $12.69 by $1.22. The company had revenue of $7.08 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $6.73 billion. BlackRock had a return on equity of 14.90% and a net margin of 24.09%.BlackRock’s revenue for the quarter was up 30.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $12.05 EPS. On average, equities analysts predict that BlackRock will post 55.86 EPS for the current fiscal year.

BlackRock Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, September 22nd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, September 8th will be paid a dividend of $5.73 per share. This represents a $22.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.0%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, September 8th. BlackRock’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 54.78%.

BlackRock Profile

BlackRock, Inc is a global investment management firm that provides a broad range of products and services to institutional, intermediary and individual investors. Its core activities include portfolio management across active and index strategies, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) under the iShares brand, fixed income, equity and multi-asset solutions, as well as alternatives such as private equity, real estate and infrastructure. The firm also offers cash management and liquidity solutions and retirement-focused products designed for defined contribution and defined benefit investors.

In addition to traditional investment management, BlackRock is known for its technology and risk management capabilities, most prominently its Aladdin platform, which combines portfolio management, trading and risk analytics and is used both internally and licensed to external clients.