Insider Selling: Block, Inc. (NYSE:SQ) CFO Sells 5,935 Shares of Stock

Block, Inc. (NYSE:SQ) CFO Amrita Ahuja sold 5,935 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, October 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $65.53, for a total transaction of $388,920.55. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 255,496 shares in the company, valued at approximately $16,742,652.88. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink.

Amrita Ahuja also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Wednesday, August 21st, Amrita Ahuja sold 6,661 shares of Block stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $64.70, for a total value of $430,966.70.
• On Monday, July 8th, Amrita Ahuja sold 1,147 shares of Block stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $66.57, for a total value of $76,355.79.

Block Trading Up 2.1 %

SQ opened at $67.02 on Monday. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $64.13 and a 200 day simple moving average of $67.94. Block, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $38.85 and a fifty-two week high of $87.52. The company has a market cap of $41.26 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 87.04, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.87 and a beta of 2.49. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.26, a current ratio of 1.82 and a quick ratio of 1.82.

Block (NYSE:SQ) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, August 1st. The technology company reported $0.93 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.84 by $0.09. Block had a net margin of 3.47% and a return on equity of 3.77%. The company had revenue of $6.16 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $6.27 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.40 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.2% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Block, Inc. will post 1.71 earnings per share for the current year.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Block

Hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Bares Capital Management Inc. boosted its position in shares of Block by 2.0% during the fourth quarter. Bares Capital Management Inc. now owns 4,487,251 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $347,089,000 after purchasing an additional 87,826 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in Block by 3.7% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 36,192,701 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $2,799,505,000 after buying an additional 1,277,043 shares during the period. Lone Pine Capital LLC lifted its holdings in Block by 13.9% during the second quarter. Lone Pine Capital LLC now owns 7,670,523 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $494,672,000 after acquiring an additional 934,588 shares in the last quarter. &PARTNERS grew its stake in Block by 8.3% in the first quarter. &PARTNERS now owns 8,641 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $731,000 after acquiring an additional 659 shares during the period. Finally, Cibc World Markets Corp bought a new stake in shares of Block in the fourth quarter worth about $1,184,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 70.44% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

SQ has been the topic of a number of research reports. Susquehanna restated a “positive” rating and set a $100.00 price objective on shares of Block in a research report on Wednesday, June 26th. Needham & Company LLC dropped their price objective on shares of Block from $105.00 to $80.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, August 5th. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $88.00 price objective on shares of Block in a report on Friday, August 2nd. Morgan Stanley lowered their target price on shares of Block from $60.00 to $55.00 and set an “underweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, July 30th. Finally, New Street Research initiated coverage on shares of Block in a research note on Monday, September 9th. They set a “neutral” rating and a $70.00 price target for the company. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have issued a hold rating, twenty-four have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $87.31.

About Block

Square, Inc provides payment and point-of-sale solutions in the United States and internationally. The company's commerce ecosystem includes point-of-sale software and hardware that enables sellers to turn mobile and computing devices into payment and point-of-sale solutions. It offers hardware products, including Magstripe reader, which enables swiped transactions of magnetic stripe cards; Contactless and chip reader that accepts EMV® chip cards and Near Field Communication payments; Chip card reader, which accepts EMV® chip cards and enables swiped transactions of magnetic stripe cards; Square Stand, which enables an iPad to be used as a payment terminal or full point of sale solution; and Square Register that combines its hardware, point-of-sale software, and payments technology, as well as managed payments solutions.