Evercore ISI Issues Positive Forecast for BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) Stock Price

BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) had its price objective boosted by Evercore ISI from $1,040.00 to $1,160.00 in a report released on Thursday, Benzinga reports. The firm currently has an “outperform” rating on the asset manager’s stock. Evercore ISI’s price objective indicates a potential upside of 12.64% from the company’s current price.

Other research analysts have also recently issued reports about the company. Barclays raised their price objective on BlackRock from $1,010.00 to $1,120.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, October 14th. UBS Group decreased 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. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price objective on shares of BlackRock from $1,000.00 to $1,070.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 9th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised their target price on shares of BlackRock from $960.00 to $1,040.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, October 3rd. Finally, Morgan Stanley upped their price target on shares of BlackRock from $1,150.00 to $1,245.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, October 14th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eleven have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $1,004.54.

BlackRock Trading Up 1.5 %

Shares of BlackRock stock opened at $1,029.82 on Thursday. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $947.54 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $857.04. The firm has a market capitalization of $152.55 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.42, a PEG ratio of 1.77 and a beta of 1.30. BlackRock has a 12-month low of $646.91 and a 12-month high of $1,057.51. The company has a current ratio of 5.06, a quick ratio of 5.06 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37.

BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) last released its earnings results on Friday, October 11th. The asset manager reported $11.46 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $10.42 by $1.04. BlackRock had a return on equity of 15.52% and a net margin of 31.37%. The firm had revenue of $5.20 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.03 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $10.91 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 14.9% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts predict that BlackRock will post 42.94 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity at BlackRock

In other BlackRock news, Director Mark Wiedman sold 11,061 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $852.95, for a total transaction of $9,434,479.95. Following the transaction, the director now owns 6,480 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,527,116. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Insiders sold a total of 35,061 shares of company stock worth $30,734,840 in the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 0.90% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Pathway Financial Advisers LLC grew its holdings in shares of BlackRock by 89,389.4% during the third quarter. Pathway Financial Advisers LLC now owns 1,046,131 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $993,312,000 after buying an additional 1,044,962 shares in the last quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC raised its holdings in BlackRock by 104,468.9% in the 3rd quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 792,632 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $7,526,120,000 after buying an additional 791,874 shares during the period. Capital Research Global Investors lifted its holdings in shares of BlackRock by 11.1% in 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 acquiring an additional 435,358 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of 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 buying an additional 292,017 shares during the period. Finally, M&G Plc purchased a new position in BlackRock during the 1st quarter valued at about $161,918,000. 80.69% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.