Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. Makes New $794,000 Investment in Block, Inc. $XYZ

Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. purchased a new stake in Block, Inc. (NYSE:XYZ) during the 2nd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor purchased 20,845 shares of the technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $794,000.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of XYZ. Baird Financial Group Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Block during the second quarter worth $1,866,000. Brown Advisory Inc. acquired a new stake in Block during the 2nd quarter worth about $516,000. Jump Financial LLC purchased a new stake in Block during the second quarter valued at about $385,000. Federated Hermes Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Block in the second quarter worth about $53,000. Finally, Cerity Partners LLC acquired a new position in shares of Block in the second quarter worth about $1,861,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 70.44% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Block

In other news, CFO Amrita Ahuja sold 9,511 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $82.43, for a total transaction of $783,991.73. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer owned 423,262 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $34,889,486.66. This represents a 2.20% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, Director Anthony Mathew Eisen sold 135,750 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, June 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $76.81, for a total value of $10,426,957.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 2,032,990 shares in the company, valued at $156,153,961.90. The trade was a 6.26% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders have sold a total of 495,756 shares of company stock worth $39,090,259 over the last three months. Corporate insiders own 11.37% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages recently commented on XYZ. Monness Crespi & Hardt upped their price target on shares of Block from $115.00 to $125.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, August 7th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft raised shares of Block to a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, June 30th. TD Cowen raised their target price on Block from $101.00 to $105.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 6th. Clear Str raised Block to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 16th. Finally, Weiss Ratings upgraded Block from a “hold (c-)” rating to a “hold (c)” rating in a report on Thursday, August 6th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-nine have given a Buy rating and eight have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Block has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $95.84.

Block Price Performance

Shares of XYZ opened at $83.28 on Thursday. The firm has a market cap of $50.03 billion, a PE ratio of 148.71, a PEG ratio of 0.92 and a beta of 2.53. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $79.26 and its 200 day moving average price is $69.79. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.26, a quick ratio of 2.21 and a current ratio of 2.21. Block, Inc. has a twelve month low of $48.21 and a twelve month high of $86.75.

Block (NYSE:XYZ) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, August 5th. The technology company reported $1.02 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.48 by $0.54. The company had revenue of $6.62 billion during the quarter. Block had a net margin of 1.43% and a return on equity of 8.10%. The business’s revenue was up 9.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $0.62 earnings per share. Block has set its FY 2026 guidance at 4.020-4.020 EPS and its Q3 2026 guidance at 1.020-1.020 EPS. As a group, research analysts expect that Block, Inc. will post 2.69 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Block Profile

Block (NYSE:XYZ) is a financial technology company that builds products and services to facilitate electronic payments, commerce, and consumer finance. Its principal business lines include a seller-focused ecosystem that provides point-of-sale hardware and software, payment processing, invoicing, payroll and lending services, and a consumer-facing platform that offers peer-to-peer payments, banking-like features, and investing. Block’s portfolio also encompasses music streaming and buy-now-pay-later capabilities through businesses acquired to broaden its reach beyond core payments.

The company was founded as Square in 2009 by Jack Dorsey and Jim McKelvey and later rebranded to Block to reflect a diversified set of businesses across payments, consumer finance, and emerging technologies.