AMG National Trust Bank Buys New Position in BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE:BLK)

AMG National Trust Bank bought a new stake in shares of BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE:BLK) in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor bought 646 shares of the asset manager’s stock, valued at approximately $662,000.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in BLK. Proficio Capital Partners LLC raised its holdings in shares of BlackRock by 138,682.5% during the fourth quarter. Proficio Capital Partners LLC now owns 634,236 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $634,000 after acquiring an additional 633,779 shares in the last quarter. Montrusco Bolton Investments Inc. bought a new position in shares of BlackRock during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $343,976,000. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. bought a new position in shares of BlackRock during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $330,662,000. National Pension Service bought a new position in shares of BlackRock during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $322,097,000. Finally, FMR LLC raised its holdings in shares of BlackRock by 10.6% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 2,363,965 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $2,244,608,000 after acquiring an additional 226,135 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 80.69% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities research analysts recently weighed in on BLK shares. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods reduced their price target on BlackRock from $1,225.00 to $1,160.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, January 13th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on BlackRock from $914.00 to $971.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. Morgan Stanley upped their price target on BlackRock from $1,261.00 to $1,275.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 16th. UBS Group upped their price target on BlackRock from $1,017.00 to $1,045.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 21st. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company upped their price target on BlackRock from $1,155.00 to $1,175.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 16th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, BlackRock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $1,120.67.

BlackRock Trading Down 1.2 %

NYSE BLK opened at $947.96 on Friday. BlackRock, Inc. has a 12 month low of $745.55 and a 12 month high of $1,084.22. The stock has a market cap of $146.82 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.57, a P/E/G ratio of 1.90 and a beta of 1.28. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $994.60 and its 200-day moving average price is $985.00. The company has a current ratio of 5.23, a quick ratio of 5.23 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45.

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 firm had revenue of $5.68 billion for 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%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 22.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $9.66 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts forecast that BlackRock, Inc. will post 47.41 EPS for the current fiscal year.

BlackRock Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 24th. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 7th will be issued a dividend of $5.21 per share. 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 dividend yield of 2.20%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, March 7th. BlackRock’s dividend payout ratio is presently 49.62%.

Insider Activity

In other news, Director J. Richard Kushel sold 10,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $1,010.00, for a total transaction of $10,100,000.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 68,433 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $69,117,330. This represents a 12.75 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Insiders have sold a total of 20,430 shares of company stock valued at $21,234,629 over the last ninety days. 0.90% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

BlackRock Company 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.