Big investor gets into BlackRock stock — but not for its traditional area of dominance

CNBC Finance

5 min read

Every weekday, the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer releases the Homestretch â an actionable afternoon update, just in time for the last hour of trading on Wall Street. The Dow, S & P 500, and Nasdaq were higher in Tuesday afternoon trading after going between gains and losses earlier in the session. The usual suspects of late, namely enterprise software names, were taking it on the chin again, as worries persisted about artificial intelligence hurting their businesses. Salesforce dropped more than 3%, while CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks sank 4.5% and more than 2%, respectively. We can't defend Salesforce here, only hold â but as we have said repeatedly, our cybersecurity names should not be painted with the same brush. Palo Alto Networks reports earnings after Tuesday's close. Earlier, we said we were considering another CrowdStrike buy if the stock were to head much lower. Apple shares rose more than 3.5% and were our biggest Club winner on Tuesday. The tech giant is planning a showcase next month, when the latest budget iPhone could be unveiled. Jim Cramer has been saying, and did so again this weekend , that Apple is the biggest winner of the AI disruption because it is piggybacking off Alphabet without sacrificing its free cash flow on capital expenditures. We bought more Alphabet on Tuesday as the stock continued lower. Investors selling shares of the Google parent are being shortsighted. Sure, Alphabet's capex plans are way up, but its AI push is working as its latest earnings report showed. ValueAct has taken a stake in BlackRock, and the hedge fund's rationale for investing has piqued our interest. During "The Master Investor" podcast with CNBC contributor Wilfred Frost, co-CEO Mason Morfit unveiled the position and argued that BlackRock is uniquely positioned to lead on investment management software with its Aladdin platform, which is used across the investment industry to manage risk, execute trades, and more. As AI technology matures, Morfit said he believes that Aladdin can help automate investment decisions, allowing portfolios to be managed "far better and faster and cheaper than a human being could do it." That kind of technology offering also pushes BlackRock's reputation beyond that of a leading exchange-traded fund operator with its iShares family of funds. "It was already the apex predator," Morfit said in the episode, released Tuesday. "But with the ingesting of software DNA into its dinosaur body, it becomes even more and more powerful." The rationale for ValueAct's position caught our eye because it underscores how BlackRock is repositioning itself at a time when ETF fees have been under competitive pressure. It's also done this through a series of deals in the increasingly popular private credit space. BlackRock, for example, completed its $12 billion acquisition of private credit manager HPS Investment Partners last year. On the technology side, BlackRock's acquisition of private markets data provider Preqin â while not carrying the biggest price tag â further illustrates its technology capabilities . All of this allows the firm to diversify its revenues and capitalize on faster-growing markets with higher fees. In 2025, BlackRock's technology segment â home to Aladdin and Preqin revenues â totaled just under $2 billion, about 8% of companywide revenues. BlackRock shares edged slightly lower Tuesday and are down less than 1% year to date. From the Barclays industrial conference , Dover CEO Andrew Tobin said Tuesday the company saw an acceleration in orders heading into 2026, a trend that wasn't present at the same point a year earlier. This gave them confidence in the setup for 2026. By business, Tobin believes the Fueling Solutions business within its Clean Energy segment is about to enter a three-year up-cycle. Dover is also upbeat on its Climate & Sustainability business, where it has invested in brazed plate heat exchangers to keep up with data center-related demand. When asked about what segment he's most worried about, Tobin responded with the vehicle aftermarket business. He's not forecasting a sales decline this year, but he acknowledged the business is levered toward the European market, which has struggled. Coming up after Tuesday's closing bell is the first of two Club name earnings reports. The aforementioned Palo Alto Networks will be the main event for us. ( Texas Roadhouse is out later in the week.) Palo Alto CEO Nikesh Arora will get the opportunity to refute concerns that AI will take away market share from cybersecurity providers. We would also like to hear more about the company's Tuesday morning announcement that it plans to buy agentic endpoint startup Rio. Also, Tuesday afternoon are earnings from Cadence Design Systems , Devon Energy , Kenvue , and Toll Brothers . On Wednesday, it's all about the economy, with housing starts and industrial production data in the morning, and the minutes from the latest Federal Reserve meeting in the afternoon. (See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.

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Big investor gets into BlackRock stock — but not for its traditional area of dominance

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