BlackRock Inc. (BLK) and Two Other Companies Register Noteworthy Insider Selling

BlackRock Witnesses Some Insider Selling

BlackRock Inc. (NYSE:BLK) is another company that registered some insider selling recently. Jeff A. Smith, Senior Managing Director of BlackRock and global head of Human Resources, sold 2,650 shares on Friday at prices varying from $353.59 to $357.54 per share, cutting his stake to 25,331 shares. There has been much more insider selling activity at the company in recent months, but most of that activity was related to freshly-exercised stock options.

The investment management firm, with AUM of around $4.65 trillion, has seen its market capitalization gain 7% since the beginning of 2016, successfully recouping the loss in market value incurred at the end of 2015 and early 2016. Just recently, William Katz, an analyst at Citigroup, upgraded BlackRock to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral” and increased his price target by 20% to $410, which yields an upside of at least 12%. The Citigroup analyst believes that BlackRock will benefit from the new fiduciary standard rules recently presented by the Department of Labor (DOL), as they are anticipated to drive up demand for low-cost index-tracking exchange traded funds (ETFs). The DOL’s final fiduciary rule and related exemptions are designed to protect investors from receiving conflicted advice. Moreover, William Katz anticipates a “significant runway” for BlackRock’s iShares, which is the leading ETF provider in the world, while the company’s digital wealth management platform FutureAdvisor and BlackRock Solutions (BRS) business can be expanded significantly.

BlackRock shares currently trade at a forward P/E ratio of 16.0, slightly above the ratio of 13.1 for the Financial sector. There were 34 top money managers from our database invested in the investment management firm at the end of 2015. Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management cut its stake in BlackRock Inc. (NYSE:BLK) by 6% during the March quarter to 75,737 shares.

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