(Reuters) -BlackRock’s assets under management hit a new high in the second quarter as global markets rallied on the prospect of trade deals and interest-rate cuts from the U.S. Federal Reserve, brushing aside earlier tariff-related jitters.
Shares of the company rose 1.1% in premarket trading.
A robust labor market, a healthy consumer and hopes that President Donald Trump would ease some of his harsher trade measures pushed major U.S. indices to all-time highs through the end of June.
That marked a sharp reversal from early April, when tumult in U.S. trade and geopolitical policy battered confidence and fueled recession fears, concerns that BlackRock CEO Larry Fink echoed at the time.
The benchmark S&P 500 index rose 10.57% in the second quarter of 2025 after escaping bear market territory.
BlackRock’s assets under management rose to $12.53 trillion in the quarter ended June 30, from $10.65 trillion last year. However, long-term net inflows fell to $46 billion in the quarter, down 9.8%.
“We generated 6% organic base fee growth for the second quarter and the first half of 2025 and 7% over the last 12 months,” Fink said.
As equities rallied, fixed-income products saw outflows of $4.66 billion, BlackRock said.
Trends for the business are being closely scrutinized, given the turbulence in U.S. treasuries this quarter. The benchmark 10-year yield recorded one of its biggest weekly increases since 2001 after the “Liberation Day” shock.
BlackRock’s fixed-income executives expressed concerns last month that ballooning U.S. debt could suppress appetite for longer-dated treasuries and the dollar, which recorded its worst first-half performance this year since 1973.
Safe haven assets like treasuries and the greenback have also suffered as markets price in tax cuts and spending hikes from Trump’s recently passed “Big Beautiful Bill”, which nonpartisan analysts predict will add more than $3 trillion to the country’s $36.2 trillion debt.
A weaker dollar tends to boost returns from foreign-currency assets. BlackRock recorded a positive foreign exchange impact of $171.52 billion in the quarter, compared with a $35.45 billion downward revision in the year-ago period.
Its performance fees fell 42.7% to $94 million in the reported period, after falling nearly 71% in the first quarter.
The low-cost investments juggernaut has been pivoting towards private markets, which provide higher margin revenue compared to those from ETFs, where BlackRock faces intense competition and fee compression as the market matures.
