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Reports Tuesday, October 13, 2026. Prepared September 24, 2026. This is the Q3 2026 print (quarter ending September 30). It has not been reported.

BLK | Earnings Preview

Q3 2026 has not printed. The last reported baseline is Q2 2026 (July 15): total revenue $7,084 million (+30.6% YoY vs $5,423 million), adjusted operating margin 45.9% (+260 bps vs 43.3%), adjusted diluted EPS $13.91 (+15.4% vs $12.05). Organic base-fee growth was 8%, the same rate as Q1, and trailing-twelve-month organic growth is still 10%. The earnings-session move was +6.63% (Daloopa adjusted close, $1,020.20 on July 14 to $1,087.82 on July 15). The next session did not reverse it.

Growth trajectory — revenue has been accelerating, and the Street is underwriting the stop. Year-over-year revenue went +12.9% in Q2 2025, +25.2% in Q3 2025, +23.4% in Q4 2025, +27.0% in Q1 2026, and +30.6% in Q2 2026. Adjusted EPS growth re-accelerated after a near-flat Q3 2025: +0.8%, +10.3%, +10.9%, +15.4%. FMP for this print is $7,439 million / $14.28, which is +14.3% on revenue vs $6,509 million and +23.6% on EPS vs $11.55. Revenue growth is supposed to slow by about 16 points from the last print. EPS growth is supposed to speed up. That split is the HPS anniversary: HPS closed July 1, 2025, so Q3 2026 is the first quarter with HPS in both periods. It is not a demand collapse, and it is not a guide cut. BlackRock does not guide revenue or EPS.

What is still accelerating, and what has stalled. ETF base-fee growth is the large engine still speeding up: +23.4% in Q3 2025, +25.6% in Q4 2025, +34.2% in Q1 2026, +38.4% in Q2 2026 on $2,595 million. Margin expansion widened from +130 bps to +260 bps. Organic quarterly growth peaked at 12% in Q4 2025 and has been flat at 8% for two quarters. Technology services revenue has decelerated from +27.8% in Q3 2025 to +13.4% in Q2 on $566 million. Private-markets base fees were $639 million in Q2, +28.1% versus Q2 2025 $499 million. The post-close level is flat to down versus the Q3 2025 fee of $653 million. That comparison is the quarter this print laps, not a growth rate.

Watch items

• Guidance. The live framework is floors: organic base-fee growth 5%+, adjusted operating margin 45%+, a 25% tax run-rate for the rest of 2026, mid-single-digit full-year G&A after annualizing HPS and Preqin, and low-to-mid-teens long-term technology ACV. The only number raised since January is the buyback, to at least $550 million a quarter. Nothing has been updated since July 15, including after the September 16 funds-rate hike. Street Q3 EPS of $14.28 already clears the verbal "double-digit" floor by a wide margin. An in-line $14.28, after 12 straight adjusted-EPS beats, would trade like a miss even if every floor is met.
• The rate hike, not tariffs. There is no company tariff line on this print. The macro change the July guide did not have is the September 16 hike to 3.75–4.00%, the first since 2023. Reuters had the 10-year at 5.106% by September 23. BlackRock Investment Institute's September note ("The AI buildout meets the 5% world") stays overweight U.S. equities. It is not the source of that yield. Q3 average AUM is mostly already set (the hike landed with two weeks left in the quarter). The call is about Q4 flows, cash, and whether the "sustainable 8%" sentence survives a smaller equity tailwind than Q2.
• The three numbers that decide it. Organic base-fee growth near 8%, not merely above 5%. Adjusted margin at or above the 45.9% exit, not merely above 45%, in a quarter when performance fees are seasonally large (Q3 2025 was $516 million). Cash repurchases that clear $550 million. A revenue growth rate in the mid-teens does not, by itself, break the tone.

Hold, not a fade. The franchise is intact and the EPS beat record is 12 for 12. There is no internal model, and the Street has already moved to the post-HPS math. Paying for another beat of a 5% floor is not the trade. The bar is whether 8% organic and a mid-45s margin hold while revenue growth decelerates.

No comparable asset manager prints before that morning. JPM is issuer-confirmed the same morning and is a markets read-through only. STT, BX, TROW, and KKR come after.

BlackRock does not issue a quarterly or full-year revenue range, EPS range, gross-margin range, or EBITDA range. The bar on October 13 is FMP, not a company midpoint. Where management has put a number down, it is a floor under recent delivery. Classification: Conservative on organic growth, the "double-digit" earnings sentence, and the buyback (still "at least"). The 45% margin floor is a real hurdle — it was missed in four of the last eight quarters — but it is not an aggressive target with the last print at 45.9%.

Consensus, FMP only, as of September 24. Not Visible Alpha and not Bloomberg. Five analysts on Q3 revenue, nine on Q3 EPS.

Q2 base fees of $5,726 million were +28.6% versus Q2 2025 base fees of $4,454 million. That Q2 level sits 13.5% above the Q3 2025 comp of $5,046 million. That gap is the quarter being lapped, not Q2's growth rate. Consensus total-revenue growth of +14.3% sits in that neighborhood versus Q3 2025. It does not require a repeat of the +28.6% YoY base-fee rate, and it does not require performance fees to blow past last Q3's $516 million.

Internal column is n/a on every row. No model was available. "% diff" on revenue and EPS is FMP versus the year-ago reported quarter, because there is no guide midpoint. A floor with no ceiling is not a midpoint. Columns on the history table are periods. Rows are metrics.

(a) Current quarter — Q3 2026e

Reported path into the print. YoY is versus the year-ago quarter.

Revenue growth accelerated into Q2 and the Street steps it down. EPS growth has been accelerating and the Street steps it up. ETF fees are the only large engine still accelerating. Technology growth is slowing into the ACV band, not away from it. Quarterly organic cooled and then stalled; the trailing rate stopped rising at 10%.

(b) FQ+1 — Q4 2026e

No quarterly guide exists for Q4 either. The items that cover "the remainder of 2026" are the tax rate, the buyback floor, full-year G&A, the capital-return floor, and the through-the-cycle margin floor.

Nothing on the July call previews a Q4 margin cadence inside the year. The harder comp is fees and organic growth, not the margin floor.

(c) FY+1 guide — the FY2026 framework still in force

"Old" means the guide already on the books, not a new guide. FY2027 is not guided.

The July 15 call was the most confident of the last four, and the forecast did not move with the adjectives. Fink: he has never been more optimistic about BlackRock's future. Small: two full years above the organic target means the level is sustainable, and there is a clear path to structurally higher margins and sustained double-digit earnings growth. The only hard number that changed was the buyback. Organic stays 5%+. Margin stays 45%+. Tax stays 25%. G&A stays mid-single-digit. ACV stays low-to-mid teens.

Confidence rose because the print did, not because the target was raised. Q3 2025 margin was still under the floor. Q4 2025 was 45.0% and Small would not take the number up. Q1 2026 was 44.5%, and the "not a ceiling" line was said from below the floor. Q2 was 45.9%, the highest in nearly five years, and the same sentence was said from above it, with 2021's roughly 47% as the reference. Private credit flipped from explanation (Q3 2025 and Q1 2026, including a hedge that wealth redemptions could rise) to offense. Q2 did not repeat that hedge. The Q1 macro caution — March called the worst month for broad markets since September 2022 — was removed, not resolved. That optimism was locked in on July 15, before the September hike.

The assumption got more ambitious while the quarterly rate stopped rising. The Q1 call said structural growers could deliver 6% to 7%, with higher outcomes when markets help. Q2 dropped the 6–7% figure and spoke as if the realized 8% was the durable rate. Eight consecutive quarters at or above 5% is the streak Fink cited. It is also a 100% "beat" of a floor that is never raised. The trajectory inside the beat is the tell: the quarterly rate peaked at 12% and has been 8% twice. LTM organic growth rose from 7% to 10% and then plateaued.

What the guide assumes, and what would break it.

• Mix, not just market beta, holds the margin: private markets, active ETFs, digital assets, non-cap-weighted indexing, SMAs, models, and systematic. The 2030 aim, restated by Small, is more than 30% of revenue from private markets and technology. Q2 base fees included roughly $230 million of HPS, management-stated, not a separate Daloopa tag. That dollar anniversaries this quarter.
• The tax rate, the HPS share count, and performance fees stop being the EPS drag they were in Q2. Adjusted EPS grew 15.4% while revenue grew 30.6%. Small attributed the gap to lower non-operating income, a higher tax rate, and a higher share count from the July 1, 2025 close. Q3 is the first quarter in which that share issuance is in the year-ago base for the full quarter. That is why Street EPS growth can exceed both Street revenue growth and Q2's EPS growth. It is arithmetic, not a new guide. Excluding performance fees, management said the Q2 margin would have been 46.5%. A lighter fee quarter lowers reported revenue and, on their math, does not hurt the recurring margin.
• G&A growth normalizes once the acquisitions are in both periods, and free cash flow funds the higher buyback. Both are tested for the first time in this print. They have hit a stated repurchase amount to the dollar in this window. Credibility on the buyback is high and the content is low until they miss it or walk it back.
• Markets stay constructive enough that beta does not overwhelm the mix. Ending AUM was $15,344,624 million, +22.5% vs $12,527,590 million. Q3 fees are earned on July–September average AUM, not the June 30 spot. Reuters marks the S&P 500 from 7,499.36 on June 30 to 7,706.05 on September 23, about +2.8% with a week left, after a +14.9% second quarter. Q3 market beta is a fraction of the Q2 tailwind. The July guide has not been revised for that, or for the September 16 hike.

Caveats that were still on the July call. The 25% tax rate may differ for discrete items or legislation — three of the last four guided quarters landed under 25%, and Q4 2025 was 20.2%, so "below the tax guide" has been an EPS tailwind, not a miss. The latest quarter already printed 25.2%, so 25% is no longer a sandbag. The buyback is conditional on capital spending and markets. Distribution tolls were raised by the Street (Merrill revenue-sharing, Schwab platform fees); Small said the index-ETF practice does not include tolls and that the firm is not in those negotiations. That risk is unresolved, not retired. Fink said the public-plus-private risk system is not finished. Securitize marks can move non-operating income without saying anything about the fee franchise.

What changed after July 15. No 8-K, conference, or interview through September 24 revised the margin floor, the tax rate, the $550 million pace, the G&A guide, or the ACV band. No Fink or Small sell-side conference appearance turned up; the December 9, 2025 Goldman fireside remains the last identified one. The dividend was held. The deployment news (Aligned, the Meta venture, TotalEnergies) is client-vehicle capital, not a corporate revenue guide. BlackRock Investment Institute commentary into mid-September is still overweight U.S. equities and AI, and it is no longer the July tape of equities at the highs with no caveat.

Confirms the tone if organic holds near 8%, the margin holds at or above 45.9% rather than merely above 45%, and repurchases clear $550 million, with G&A growth stepped down now that HPS is in both periods. Breaks the tone if organic slides to the 5% floor, the margin gives back the expansion, or the buyback prints another roughly $450 million quarter and the new line is restated as conditional. Does not decide it if revenue growth decelerates from +30.6% toward the low-to-mid teens.

FMP underwrites a post-HPS revenue slowdown to +14.3% and faster EPS growth. It does not publish organic growth, flows, private-markets fees, technology, or performance fees. "What consensus believes" on those lines is inferred from the headline bars. ETF base fees are the only large engine still accelerating.

Management keeps describing one firm: organic growth above 5%, private markets on a path to $400 billion of gross fundraising, technology ACV in the low-to-mid teens, and digital revenue of $500 million by 2030. The reported trajectory agrees with the first of those and not yet with the other three. The Street has already moved to the post-anniversary math. It has not capitalized the 2030 stories. Those can be right and still be irrelevant to whether Q3 hits $14.28.

Window is July 16 through September 24, after the Q2 report. Nothing in it revises Q2 revenue of $7,084 million, the 45.9% margin, or the July 15 guide. The pattern is private-markets deployment in client vehicles, plus tokenization and LifePath. Deal sizes below are transaction disclosures, not BlackRock consolidated revenue.

Left out on purpose: routine fund distributions, the July 15 release itself, and crypto mark-to-market writeups. The incremental information into the print is qualitative. None of it is a guidance change. Consensus is still about $7.44 billion and $14.28.

Consistent beater on adjusted EPS: 12 of 12 over Q3 2023–Q2 2026, and 4 of 4 since Q3 2025. Revenue is mixed over 12 quarters (8 of 12) only because four misses were each inside 1%. The last four revenue prints are also 4 for 4, and the beat has been getting larger, to +5.3% in Q2 2026 on $7,084 million versus a $6,727 million FMP estimate. That is the widest revenue beat in the window. Q3 2026 has not printed.

Actuals below are Daloopa total revenue and diluted EPS as adjusted. FMP actuals match those two series, so FMP is scoring the as-adjusted EPS the company discusses, not GAAP. A beat is any positive surprise. No quarter was a dead zero.

The EPS surprise path inside the last four quarters is +1.7%, +7.5%, +7.6%, +9.6%. Dollar beats were +$0.19, +$0.92, +$0.88, +$1.22. The twelve-quarter average of +9.8% is flattered by Q3 2023 at +32.1%, which was a discrete tax benefit (about $215 million, as Martin Small described on the later call), not an operating blowout. Excluding that quarter, the average is +7.8%. The beat got smaller into the HPS quarter and has re-widened. It is not deteriorating in the current regime. Revenue surprise averages went from about flat, to +1.1%, to +3.5% over the last four.

Two EPS beats were not clean operating beats. Q1 2025 revenue missed by 0.3% and performance fees fell to $60 million, but EPS beat by 12.1% with about $195 million of discrete tax benefits on the call. Q3 2025 is the analog for this setup: revenue beat by 2.8% and performance fees were $516 million, but the EPS beat shrank to +1.7%. Performance-fee compensation and the HPS share issuance absorbed the revenue beat. Q2 2026 is the clean contrast: tax near 25%, revenue surprise +5.3%, EPS surprise +9.6%.

A mechanical add of the trailing-four average dollar EPS beat (about $0.80) onto $14.28 is about $15.08, and a +3.5% revenue beat on $7,439 million is about $7.70 billion. Those are the wrong bar if copied forward. The last four revenue beats were printed while HPS was still annualizing into the compare. That tailwind is smaller this quarter. The share-count headwind is now in the base, which is the legitimate reason EPS growth can outrun revenue growth. An in-line $14.28 would be the first break in the EPS streak in two years, and it would still be consistent with every qualitative sentence management has committed to.

Read left to right. The revenue row is pale or red through mid-2025, then stays green and darkens into Q2 2026. The EPS row is green the whole way. The two cells that distort a casual average are Q3 2023 EPS and Q3 2025 EPS. After that pale Q3 2025 cell, the EPS greens darken again. The base case into October 13 is another beat. The magnitude analog is Q3 2025's +1.7% EPS surprise more than Q2 2026's +9.6%, unless performance fees again clear a bar the Street has already moved up.

Data sourced from Daloopa.