Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) Given Average Rating of “Moderate Buy” by Brokerages

Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) has earned a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the twenty analysts that are presently covering the company, Marketbeat Ratings reports. Nine investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, ten have given a buy recommendation and one has assigned a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average twelve-month target price among brokerages that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $183.6842.

BX has been the subject of several research analyst reports. Barclays cut their target price on Blackstone from $181.00 to $171.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, October 8th. Bank of America reduced their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $200.00 to $199.00 in a research report on Friday, October 3rd. Evercore ISI upped their target price on shares of Blackstone from $165.00 to $197.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, July 25th. JMP Securities upped their price target on shares of Blackstone from $180.00 to $195.00 and gave the company a “market outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, July 25th. Finally, HSBC boosted their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $170.00 to $179.00 in a research report on Wednesday, October 15th.

Blackstone Stock Performance

BX opened at $161.63 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $119.14 billion, a P/E ratio of 43.45, a PEG ratio of 1.30 and a beta of 1.77. Blackstone has a 1-year low of $115.66 and a 1-year high of $200.96. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $171.23 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $155.27. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61, a current ratio of 0.74 and a quick ratio of 0.74.

Blackstone (NYSE:BX) last released its earnings results on Friday, November 22nd. The asset manager reported $0.97 earnings per share for the quarter. The company had revenue of $2.49 billion for the quarter. Blackstone had a net margin of 20.83% and a return on equity of 20.47%. Equities analysts forecast that Blackstone will post 5.87 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Blackstone Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, August 11th. Investors of record on Monday, August 4th were issued a dividend of $1.03 per share. This represents a $4.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.5%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, August 4th. This is an increase from Blackstone’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.93. Blackstone’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 110.75%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, major shareholder Private Multi-Asset Blackstone bought 2,538,071 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, September 22nd. The shares were acquired at an average cost of $25.61 per share, for a total transaction of $64,999,998.31. Following the purchase, the insider directly owned 7,506,209 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $192,234,012.49. The trade was a 51.09% increase in their ownership of the stock. The purchase was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, major shareholder Bx Buzz Ml-1 Gp Llc sold 16,689,884 shares of Blackstone stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $6.26, for a total transaction of $104,478,673.84. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have bought 2,538,345 shares of company stock valued at $65,046,628 and have sold 16,984,634 shares valued at $155,181,346. 1.00% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Blackstone

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Blackstone by 519,669.1% during the 2nd quarter. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC now owns 70,132,441 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $10,490,411,000 after purchasing an additional 70,118,948 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in Blackstone by 2.2% in the second quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 69,492,377 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $10,394,670,000 after buying an additional 1,494,796 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Blackstone by 1.4% during the second quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 16,542,863 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $2,462,706,000 after acquiring an additional 227,416 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Blackstone during the second quarter valued at about $1,071,348,000. Finally, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. boosted its stake in Blackstone by 16.3% in the 1st quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 5,292,320 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $739,761,000 after purchasing an additional 742,829 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 70.00% of the company’s stock.

Blackstone Company Profile

Blackstone Inc is an alternative asset management firm specializing in real estate, private equity, hedge fund solutions, credit, secondary funds of funds, public debt and equity and multi-asset class strategies. The firm typically invests in early-stage companies. It also provide capital markets services.