BlackRockWide moat

BLK — overall economic moat

Investment snapshot
Wide moat→ Holding steadyConfidenceHighValuationFair
Strongest advantage45% of long-term base fees from 42% of assets
Greatest threatThe fee rate has never stopped falling
Key metricBase fees over average AUM
Verdict: A genuinely wide moat around a service that gets cheaper every year. The assets are loyal, the technology business is unlike anything a rival has, and 29% of the money produces 6% of the fees - so the growth has to come from mix, and $30bn of equity was spent buying it. Reported earnings understate the economics by roughly a third; at about $173bn the fully-diluted multiple is nearer 22x than the 26x the screens show.
📈 BLK valuation, revenue & earnings — P/E, P/S, revenue, EPS →

BlackRock is paid a fraction of a percent of other people's money, every day, for as long as the money stays. At the end of 2025 that money came to $14.0 trillion1. Six months later it was $15.3 trillion2. Nothing in either figure belongs to BlackRock. It belongs to pension funds, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, and several hundred million people who own a slice of an index fund inside a retirement account they check twice a year.

Where the $24.2bn came from, 2025Base fees and securities lending — 79%Technology services — 8%Performance fees — 6%Distribution fees — 6%Advisory and other — 1%
Four-fifths of BlackRock is a percentage of asset values. The two fastest-growing slivers - technology and performance fees - are the two it bought.

The revenue that arrangement produced in 2025 was $24.2 billion3. Of that, $19.2 billion was base fees and securities lending — the annuity, charged as a percentage of assets and collected whether markets rise or fall. Then $2.0 billion of technology revenue, $1.4 billion of performance fees, $1.4 billion of distribution fees, and $0.3 billion of advisory work4. The first line is 79% of the total and is the reason to own the shares. The third line is the one that grew fastest, because BlackRock spent two years and a great deal of stock buying its way into private markets.

The assets sort into four buckets, and the sorting matters more than the total. Exchange-traded funds are $5.5 trillion. Non-ETF index mandates — the enormous, cheap, institutional kind — are $4.1 trillion. Active management is $3.4 trillion. Cash management is $1.1 trillion5. Now hold that against where the money is actually earned: ETFs are 42% of long-term assets and 45% of long-term base fees, but institutional index is 29% of the assets and 6% of the fees6. Retail is 10% of the assets and 25% of the fees7. The largest asset manager in the world earns almost nothing on nearly a third of what it manages.

That is not an accident or a failure. It is the business. Institutional index assignments arrive in multi-billion-dollar blocks and price accordingly8, and BlackRock takes them because scale in indexing is what makes the ETFs liquid, and liquidity is what makes the ETFs unbeatable. The cheap money subsidises the expensive money. Nobody describes it that way, including BlackRock.

There is also a software company inside the asset manager. Aladdin — risk analytics, portfolio construction, trade processing — earned $1,981 million in 2025, up 24%9, and it is sold to insurance companies, pension funds, banks, and other asset managers. Competitors, in other words, run their portfolios on BlackRock's system. No other firm in this collection has arranged that.

What it cost to get here shows up in the return on equity. Shareholders' funds went from $39.3 billion at the end of 2023 to $55.9 billion at the end of 202510 — a 42% increase in two years, nearly all of it goodwill from Global Infrastructure Partners, HPS Investment Partners, Preqin and ElmTree. Earnings did not rise with it. Reported earnings per share fell from $42.01 to $35.3111 in a year when revenue rose 19%, because HPS was paid for substantially in exchangeable units of a subsidiary rather than in BlackRock stock, so a slice of the profit now sits outside net income while all the revenue sits inside it. On the as-adjusted basis BlackRock reports alongside, the same year reads $43.61 to $48.0912. Both are audited. Only one is in the P/E ratio the screens show.

At about $1,067 a share the market values the whole thing near $173 billion13 — roughly 26 times reported earnings, under 18 times the earnings analysts expect next year, and about six times revenue. The number that decides whether that is cheap is not assets under management, which will keep setting records as long as markets rise. It is the fee rate: what BlackRock is paid per dollar it holds. That has fallen for two decades, and the whole strategy of the last three years — private markets, technology, digital assets — is an argument that it can be made to stop. Its five revenue lines are taken in turn in The Revenue Lines.

The number that tests this moat
Reported
Revenue, and where it comes from
$24.2B - 79% base fees

Base fees and securities lending were $19,179M of $24,216M of 2025 revenue, with technology at $1,981M, performance fees at $1,424M, distribution at $1,355M and advisory at $277M. Four-fifths of the company is a percentage of asset values; watch whether the non-fee lines keep growing faster than the fee line.

Source: BlackRock Form 10-K, fiscal year 2025 ↗
Moat scorecardHow ratings work →
Switching costs6/10
Network effects7/10
Pricing power4/10
Hard to replicate8/10
Disruption resistance6/10
Overall durability8/10

The widest advantages in asset management - the deepest ETF pools in the world and a technology platform its own competitors run on - attached to a service whose price has fallen for twenty years. Pricing power is the one dimension it does not have, which is why the strategy is a mix shift bought with $30bn of equity.

Dig deeper
DIG DEEPER 01
The Revenue Lines
Four-fifths of BlackRock is one line, a percentage of other people's assets; two of the other four were bought.
DIG DEEPER 02
The Moat
The parts of BlackRock people talk about are not the parts that make money: 29% of the assets produce 6% of the fees, and 3% produce 15%.
DIG DEEPER 03
Competitors
The most dangerous rival is owned by its own funds and structurally incapable of wanting a profit.
DIG DEEPER 04
Major Clients
No customer above 10% of revenue, and one client that took $119 billion out in a single year.
✦ Future bets — beyond today's moat
✦ FUTURE BET 01
The Future Bets
Four attempts to answer one question: can the price of managing money be stopped from falling?
⚠ Threats to the moat
⚠ THREAT 01
The Fee Rate Only Goes One Way
Assets compounded at 10% a year and revenue fell — nobody left, the price of the service did.
⚠ THREAT 02
Being Big Enough to Be a Political Question
Attacked from both directions for the same fact, and neither objection is about investment results.
◆ What the market may be missing
◆ THE VARIANT VIEW
What the Market Isn't Pricing In
The screens report 26 times earnings for a business whose fully-diluted multiple is closer to 22, and both numbers are audited.
◆ THE VARIANT VIEW
Inside the Latest Quarter (Q2 2026)
Eighty-nine percent of the new long-term money arrived through one channel, and institutional clients contributed $2 billion of $199 billion.
References
  1. ReportedAt the end of 2025 that money came to $14.0 trillion
    BlackRock, Inc. Form 10-K, FY2025, Item 1 Business — assets under management of $14.0 trillion at 31 December 2025 (long-term $12,960,786M plus cash management $1,080,732M); equity $7,793,875M, fixed income $3,272,021M, multi-asset $1,223,625M, alternatives $423,614M, digital assets $78,435M, currency and commodities $169,216M; five-year AUM CAGR 10%, alternatives 22%, multi-asset 13%, equity 12%, currency and commodities 17%, fixed income 4%; by style, active $3,432,743M, non-ETF index $4,060,333M, ETFs $5,467,710M; approximately 24,900 employees in more than 30 countries serving clients in over 100 — FY2025 · publ. February 2026 · source ↗
  2. ReportedSix months later it was $15.3 trillion
    BlackRock, Inc. Form 10-Q, quarter ended 30 June 2026 — assets under management $15.3 trillion at 30 June 2026 against $13.9 trillion at 31 March; revenue $7,084M against $5,423M a year earlier, base fees and securities lending $5,726M, performance fees $305M against $94M, technology services and subscription $566M; operating income $2,461M against $1,731M; net income attributable to BlackRock $1,914M and diluted earnings per share $12.19 against $10.19; diluted shares including Subco Units 164.6 million against 156.3 million; long-term net inflows of $199 billion in the quarter, of which ETFs $178 billion, retail $19 billion and institutional $2 billion; six months revenue $13,782M, operating income $5,275M, net income $4,126M and diluted EPS $26.25, including a $538M reduction in the fair value of contingent consideration; 154,996,807 shares of common stock outstanding; total assets $175,875M and BlackRock stockholders' equity $57,613M; approximately 26,200 employees — Q2 2026 · publ. August 2026 · source ↗
  3. ReportedThe revenue that arrangement produced in 2025 was $24.2 billion
    BlackRock, Inc. Form 10-K, FY2025, consolidated financial statements — revenue $24,216M (2024 $20,407M, 2023 $17,859M, 2022 $17,873M, 2021 $19,374M); base fees and securities lending $19,179M / $16,100M / $14,399M; performance fees $1,424M / $1,207M / $554M; technology services and subscription $1,981M / $1,603M / $1,485M; distribution fees $1,355M / $1,273M / $1,262M; advisory and other $277M / $224M / $159M; operating income $7,045M at a 29.1% margin (2024 37.1%, 2023 35.1%, 2022 35.7%, 2021 38.5%); net income $5,553M (2024 $6,369M); diluted earnings per share $35.31 (2024 $42.01, 2023 $36.51, 2022 $33.97, 2021 $38.22); as adjusted, operating income $9,600M at 44.1%, net income $7,736M and diluted EPS $48.09 against $43.61; total stockholders' equity $55,888M (2024 $47,495M, 2023 $39,347M) — FY2025 · publ. February 2026 · source ↗
  4. ReportedThen $2.0 billion of technology revenue, $1.4 billion of performance fees, $1.4 billion of distribution fees, and $0.3 billion of advisory work
    BlackRock, Inc. Form 10-K, FY2025, MD&A — total revenue $24,216M against $20,407M in 2024; base fees and securities lending $19,179M against $16,100M, including securities lending revenue of $705M against $615M; performance fees $1,424M against $1,207M, of which private markets $695M against $308M and liquid alternatives $558M against $680M; technology services and subscription revenue $1,981M against $1,603M, an increase of $378M "reflecting the sustained demand for Aladdin technology offerings and approximately $210 million of revenue related to the Preqin Transaction"; distribution fees $1,355M; advisory and other revenue $277M; annual contract value growth of 31% including Preqin and 16% excluding it; employee compensation and benefits $8,446M — FY2025 · publ. February 2026 · source ↗
  5. ReportedCash management is $1.1 trillion
    BlackRock, Inc. Form 10-K, FY2025, Item 1 Business — assets under management of $14.0 trillion at 31 December 2025 (long-term $12,960,786M plus cash management $1,080,732M); equity $7,793,875M, fixed income $3,272,021M, multi-asset $1,223,625M, alternatives $423,614M, digital assets $78,435M, currency and commodities $169,216M; five-year AUM CAGR 10%, alternatives 22%, multi-asset 13%, equity 12%, currency and commodities 17%, fixed income 4%; by style, active $3,432,743M, non-ETF index $4,060,333M, ETFs $5,467,710M; approximately 24,900 employees in more than 30 countries serving clients in over 100 — FY2025 · publ. February 2026 · source ↗
  6. ReportedNow hold that against where the money is actually earned: ETFs are 42% of long-term assets and 45% of long-term base fees, but institutional index is 29% of the assets and 6% of the fees
    BlackRock, Inc. Form 10-K, FY2025, Item 1 Business — share of long-term AUM against share of long-term base fees and securities lending revenue: ETFs 42% of AUM and 45% of fees; institutional index $3.7 trillion, 29% of AUM and 6% of fees, with $119 billion of net outflows "driven primarily by a single client's partial redemptions"; institutional active 19% of AUM and 24% of fees; retail 10% of AUM and 25% of fees, of which active and index mutual funds are approximately $860 billion or 70% of retail long-term AUM and approximately 70% of retail long-term AUM is in active products; equity 61% of long-term AUM and 50% of long-term base fees. "Institutional non-ETF index assignments tend to be very large (multi-billion dollars) and typically reflect low fee rates. Net flows in institutional index products generally have a small impact on BlackRock's revenues and earnings." — FY2025 · publ. February 2026 · source ↗
  7. ReportedRetail is 10% of the assets and 25% of the fees
    BlackRock, Inc. Form 10-K, FY2025, Item 1 Business — share of long-term AUM against share of long-term base fees and securities lending revenue: ETFs 42% of AUM and 45% of fees; institutional index $3.7 trillion, 29% of AUM and 6% of fees, with $119 billion of net outflows "driven primarily by a single client's partial redemptions"; institutional active 19% of AUM and 24% of fees; retail 10% of AUM and 25% of fees, of which active and index mutual funds are approximately $860 billion or 70% of retail long-term AUM and approximately 70% of retail long-term AUM is in active products; equity 61% of long-term AUM and 50% of long-term base fees. "Institutional non-ETF index assignments tend to be very large (multi-billion dollars) and typically reflect low fee rates. Net flows in institutional index products generally have a small impact on BlackRock's revenues and earnings." — FY2025 · publ. February 2026 · source ↗
  8. ReportedInstitutional index assignments arrive in multi-billion-dollar blocks and price accordingly, and BlackRock takes them because scale in indexing is what makes the ETFs liquid, and liquidity is what makes the ETFs unbeatable
    BlackRock, Inc. Form 10-K, FY2025, Item 1 Business — assets under management of $14.0 trillion at 31 December 2025 (long-term $12,960,786M plus cash management $1,080,732M); equity $7,793,875M, fixed income $3,272,021M, multi-asset $1,223,625M, alternatives $423,614M, digital assets $78,435M, currency and commodities $169,216M; five-year AUM CAGR 10%, alternatives 22%, multi-asset 13%, equity 12%, currency and commodities 17%, fixed income 4%; by style, active $3,432,743M, non-ETF index $4,060,333M, ETFs $5,467,710M; approximately 24,900 employees in more than 30 countries serving clients in over 100 — FY2025 · publ. February 2026 · source ↗
  9. ReportedAladdin — risk analytics, portfolio construction, trade processing — earned $1,981 million in 2025, up 24%, and it is sold to insurance companies, pension funds, banks, and other asset managers
    BlackRock, Inc. Form 10-K, FY2025, Item 1 Business — Aladdin Enterprise, Aladdin Risk, Aladdin Wealth, eFront, Preqin and Cachematrix; "while Aladdin is a multi-asset system, the majority of positions managed on the platform are fixed income"; the March 2025 Preqin acquisition "added private markets data capabilities to its existing Aladdin and eFront workflow offerings, creating a preeminent private markets technology and data provider" and "as clients' private market allocations continue to grow, they will require more standardized and transparent data on their investments, creating an additional growth opportunity for Preqin"; index AUM within or above applicable tolerance of 95%, 96% and 99% across the disclosed periods; retail investors "are served principally through intermediaries, including broker-dealers, banks, trust companies, insurance companies and independent financial advisors" and "technology solutions, digital distribution tools and a shift toward portfolio construction are increasing the number of financial advisors and end-retail investors using BlackRock products" — FY2025 · publ. February 2026 · source ↗
  10. ReportedShareholders' funds went from $39.3 billion at the end of 2023 to $55.9 billion at the end of 2025 — a 42% increase in two years, nearly all of it goodwill from Global Infrastructure Partners, HPS Investment Partners, Preqin...
    BlackRock, Inc. Form 10-K, FY2025, consolidated financial statements — revenue $24,216M (2024 $20,407M, 2023 $17,859M, 2022 $17,873M, 2021 $19,374M); base fees and securities lending $19,179M / $16,100M / $14,399M; performance fees $1,424M / $1,207M / $554M; technology services and subscription $1,981M / $1,603M / $1,485M; distribution fees $1,355M / $1,273M / $1,262M; advisory and other $277M / $224M / $159M; operating income $7,045M at a 29.1% margin (2024 37.1%, 2023 35.1%, 2022 35.7%, 2021 38.5%); net income $5,553M (2024 $6,369M); diluted earnings per share $35.31 (2024 $42.01, 2023 $36.51, 2022 $33.97, 2021 $38.22); as adjusted, operating income $9,600M at 44.1%, net income $7,736M and diluted EPS $48.09 against $43.61; total stockholders' equity $55,888M (2024 $47,495M, 2023 $39,347M) — FY2025 · publ. February 2026 · source ↗
  11. ReportedReported earnings per share fell from $42.01 to $35.31 in a year when revenue rose 19%, because HPS was paid for substantially in exchangeable units of a subsidiary rather than in BlackRock stock, so a slice of the profit now...
    BlackRock, Inc. Form 10-K, FY2025, consolidated financial statements — revenue $24,216M (2024 $20,407M, 2023 $17,859M, 2022 $17,873M, 2021 $19,374M); base fees and securities lending $19,179M / $16,100M / $14,399M; performance fees $1,424M / $1,207M / $554M; technology services and subscription $1,981M / $1,603M / $1,485M; distribution fees $1,355M / $1,273M / $1,262M; advisory and other $277M / $224M / $159M; operating income $7,045M at a 29.1% margin (2024 37.1%, 2023 35.1%, 2022 35.7%, 2021 38.5%); net income $5,553M (2024 $6,369M); diluted earnings per share $35.31 (2024 $42.01, 2023 $36.51, 2022 $33.97, 2021 $38.22); as adjusted, operating income $9,600M at 44.1%, net income $7,736M and diluted EPS $48.09 against $43.61; total stockholders' equity $55,888M (2024 $47,495M, 2023 $39,347M) — FY2025 · publ. February 2026 · source ↗
  12. ReportedOn the as-adjusted basis BlackRock reports alongside, the same year reads $43.61 to $48.09
    BlackRock, Inc. Form 10-K, FY2025, consolidated financial statements — revenue $24,216M (2024 $20,407M, 2023 $17,859M, 2022 $17,873M, 2021 $19,374M); base fees and securities lending $19,179M / $16,100M / $14,399M; performance fees $1,424M / $1,207M / $554M; technology services and subscription $1,981M / $1,603M / $1,485M; distribution fees $1,355M / $1,273M / $1,262M; advisory and other $277M / $224M / $159M; operating income $7,045M at a 29.1% margin (2024 37.1%, 2023 35.1%, 2022 35.7%, 2021 38.5%); net income $5,553M (2024 $6,369M); diluted earnings per share $35.31 (2024 $42.01, 2023 $36.51, 2022 $33.97, 2021 $38.22); as adjusted, operating income $9,600M at 44.1%, net income $7,736M and diluted EPS $48.09 against $43.61; total stockholders' equity $55,888M (2024 $47,495M, 2023 $39,347M) — FY2025 · publ. February 2026 · source ↗
  13. ReportedAt about $1,067 a share the market values the whole thing near $173 billion - roughly 26 times reported earnings, under 18 times the earnings analysts expect next year, and about six times revenue.
    BlackRock (NYSE: BLK) market data, 23 September 2026 - $1,066.63 a share, market capitalisation $173.30 billion on 162.48 million shares, P/E 25.5, forward P/E 17.85, dividend yield 2.15% (cross-checked with companiesmarketcap, $173.36 billion) — September 2026 · publ. 2026-09-23 · source ↗
Sources
Generated September 23, 2026