First American Trust FSB Raises Stock Holdings in BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE:BLK)

First American Trust FSB boosted its stake in shares of BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE:BLK) by 2.7% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 11,469 shares of the asset manager’s stock after purchasing an additional 298 shares during the quarter. BlackRock makes up about 1.2% of First American Trust FSB’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 23rd biggest position. First American Trust FSB’s holdings in BlackRock were worth $11,757,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other large investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in BLK. Modern Wealth Management LLC grew its holdings in BlackRock by 81.1% in the fourth quarter. Modern Wealth Management LLC now owns 717 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $707,000 after purchasing an additional 321 shares during the last quarter. CoreFirst Bank & Trust purchased a new position in BlackRock during the 4th quarter worth $49,000. ICW Investment Advisors LLC increased its position in BlackRock by 7.7% during the 4th quarter. ICW Investment Advisors LLC now owns 488 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $500,000 after buying an additional 35 shares in the last quarter. Angeles Investment Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in BlackRock in the fourth quarter valued at about $605,000. Finally, Congress Wealth Management LLC DE boosted its holdings in BlackRock by 35.3% in the fourth quarter. Congress Wealth Management LLC DE now owns 816 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $837,000 after acquiring an additional 213 shares in the last quarter. 80.69% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Morgan Stanley upped their price objective on shares of BlackRock from $1,261.00 to $1,275.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, January 16th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price target on shares of BlackRock from $1,155.00 to $1,175.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 16th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods decreased their price target on shares of BlackRock from $1,225.00 to $1,160.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Monday, January 13th. Citigroup boosted their price objective on shares of BlackRock from $1,150.00 to $1,200.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, December 23rd. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on BlackRock from $914.00 to $971.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, BlackRock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $1,120.67.

BlackRock Stock Performance

NYSE BLK opened at $964.28 on Tuesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $149.71 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.96, a PEG ratio of 1.90 and a beta of 1.28. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $980.97 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $989.75. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45, a quick ratio of 5.23 and a current ratio of 5.23. BlackRock, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $745.55 and a fifty-two week high of $1,084.22.

BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 15th. The asset manager reported $11.93 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $11.52 by $0.41. The company had revenue of $5.68 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.57 billion. BlackRock had a return on equity of 16.32% and a net margin of 31.21%. BlackRock’s revenue for the quarter was up 22.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $9.66 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts forecast that BlackRock, Inc. will post 47.41 earnings per share for the current year.

BlackRock Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 24th. Investors of record on Friday, March 7th were issued a dividend of $5.21 per share. The ex-dividend date was Friday, March 7th. This is an increase from BlackRock’s previous quarterly dividend of $5.10. This represents a $20.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.16%. BlackRock’s dividend payout ratio is 49.62%.

Insider Activity at BlackRock

In other news, Director J. Richard Kushel sold 10,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $1,072.64, for a total transaction of $10,726,400.00. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 68,433 shares in the company, valued at $73,403,973.12. This trade represents a 12.75 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 20,430 shares of company stock worth $21,234,629. 0.90% of the stock is 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.