Shares of Block Inc ( XYZ ) are trading higher Wednesday afternoon after the company announced its intention to offer $1.5 billion in senior notes. Here’s what investors need to know.

See what is happening with XYZ stock here.

What To Know: The offering, made to qualified institutional buyers, is intended to raise capital for general corporate purposes. According to Wednesday’s press release, these purposes may include the repayment of existing debt, potential acquisitions, strategic transactions, capital expenditures and investments.

The move to raise capital is being viewed by investors as a proactive step to fuel growth and follows a largely positive second-quarter earnings report from last week. In its Aug. 7 report, Block posted quarterly earnings of 62 cents per share on revenue of $6.05 billion.

While these headline figures missed analyst consensus estimates, the market focused on stronger underlying performance and management’s confident outlook. The company reported a 38% year-over-year growth in adjusted operating income and accelerating growth in its Square GPV.

Crucially, Block raised its guidance for the third quarter and the full year, now expecting to see $10.17 billion in gross profit for 2025. Today's debt offering appears to provide the necessary capital to execute on that ambitious forecast, signaling to the market that the company is actively funding the strategic initiatives and network expansion mentioned in its optimistic outlook.

Benzinga Edge Rankings: An analysis of Benzinga Edge stock rankings, which assess a stock’s investment profile, highlights XYZ’s exceptional strength in growth, where it scores an impressive 94.82. This high rating suggests a strong track record and future potential in areas like sales and earnings expansion.

The company’s other metrics are more moderate. It earns a solid score for Value at 63.99, indicating a reasonable stock price relative to its fundamental worth, and a Quality score of 55.66, pointing to decent financial health.

Its weakest metric is Momentum, with a score of 48.97, which suggests that its recent price performance has been relatively neutral compared to the market, despite its strong underlying growth characteristics.

XYZ Price Action: According to data from Benzinga Pro, Block shares closed Wednesday’s session higher by 3.23% to $76.95 Wednesday afternoon. The stock has a 52-week high of $99.26 and a 52-week low of $44.27.

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How To Buy XYZ Stock

By now, you're likely curious about how to participate in the market for Block — be it to purchase shares, or even attempt to bet against the company.

Buying shares is typically done through a brokerage account. You can find a list of possible trading platforms here. Many will allow you to buy “fractional shares,” which allows you to own portions of stock without buying an entire share.

In the case of Block, which is trading at $76.96 at time of writing, $100 would buy you 1.3 shares of stock.

If you're looking to bet against a company, the process is more complex. You'll need access to an options trading platform or a broker who will allow you to “go short” a share of stock by lending you the shares to sell. The process of shorting a stock can be found at this resource. Otherwise, if your broker allows you to trade options, you can either buy a put option or sell a call option at a strike price above where shares are currently trading — either way, it allows you to profit from the share price decline.

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