Aaron Wealth Advisors LLC Has $365,000 Stock Position in Block, Inc. (NYSE:SQ)

Aaron Wealth Advisors LLC increased its stake in Block, Inc. (NYSE:SQ) by 9.9% in the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 5,444 shares of the technology company’s stock after purchasing an additional 490 shares during the quarter. Aaron Wealth Advisors LLC’s holdings in Block were worth $365,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in SQ. Baillie Gifford & Co. grew its holdings in Block by 45.7% during the second quarter. Baillie Gifford & Co. now owns 10,085,229 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $650,396,000 after purchasing an additional 3,163,975 shares during the period. Lone Pine Capital LLC boosted its stake in shares of Block by 13.9% during the 2nd 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 during the period. D1 Capital Partners L.P. increased its holdings in shares of Block by 76.7% during the 2nd quarter. D1 Capital Partners L.P. now owns 1,831,342 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $118,103,000 after acquiring an additional 795,000 shares during the last quarter. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board increased its holdings in shares of Block by 1,061.0% during the 2nd quarter. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board now owns 657,667 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $42,413,000 after acquiring an additional 601,020 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Capital World Investors lifted its holdings in Block by 4.7% during the 1st quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 13,096,614 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,107,712,000 after purchasing an additional 582,826 shares during the last quarter. 70.44% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts have recently issued reports on SQ shares. William Blair upgraded shares of Block to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 31st. Morgan Stanley cut their price objective on shares of Block from $60.00 to $55.00 and set an “underweight” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, July 30th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upped their target price on Block from $90.00 to $98.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, July 12th. BMO Capital Markets dropped their price target on Block from $93.00 to $92.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, October 3rd. Finally, Macquarie restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $100.00 price target on shares of Block in a research note on Friday, July 26th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have issued a hold rating, twenty-four have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $88.79.

Block Price Performance

Shares of SQ opened at $74.66 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.82, a current ratio of 1.82 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.26. The stock has a market cap of $45.96 billion, a PE ratio of 58.33, a PEG ratio of 0.95 and a beta of 2.49. Block, Inc. has a 12-month low of $38.85 and a 12-month high of $87.52. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $66.30 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $67.21.

Block (NYSE:SQ) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 1st. The technology company reported $0.93 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.84 by $0.09. Block had a return on equity of 3.77% and a net margin of 3.47%. The company had revenue of $6.16 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $6.27 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.40 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 11.2% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts anticipate that Block, Inc. will post 1.71 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Block

In other Block news, Director Roelof Botha acquired 434,405 shares of Block stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 6th. The shares were bought at an average price of $57.55 per share, with a total value of $25,000,007.75. Following the completion of the purchase, the director now directly owns 434,405 shares in the company, valued at $25,000,007.75. The acquisition was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. In related news, Director Roelof Botha acquired 434,405 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 6th. The shares were bought at an average cost of $57.55 per share, with a total value of $25,000,007.75. Following the completion of the purchase, the director now directly owns 434,405 shares in the company, valued at $25,000,007.75. The purchase was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CAO Ajmere Dale sold 500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $61.88, for a total transaction of $30,940.00. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 92,366 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,715,608.08. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 25,214 shares of company stock worth $1,637,932. 10.49% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

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.