Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) Receives $123.65 Average Price Target from Analysts

Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) has received a consensus rating of “Hold” from the eighteen analysts that are currently covering the firm, Marketbeat reports. Twelve investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company. The average 1 year price objective among analysts that have covered the stock in the last year is $123.65.

A number of research firms have recently commented on BX. Barclays reaffirmed an “equal weight” rating and issued a $125.00 price objective (down from $129.00) on shares of Blackstone in a research note on Friday, April 19th. Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on Blackstone from $144.00 to $145.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 17th. JMP Securities reaffirmed a “market perform” rating on shares of Blackstone in a research note on Tuesday, April 9th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their price target on Blackstone from $105.00 to $100.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, April 19th. Finally, UBS Group boosted their target price on shares of Blackstone from $135.00 to $138.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, April 12th.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Blackstone news, Director Ruth Porat acquired 219 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, May 6th. The stock was bought at an average price of $119.48 per share, with a total value of $26,166.12. Following the completion of the purchase, the director now owns 34,445 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,115,488.60. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. 1.00% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Large investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Blackstone by 30.2% in the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 62,091,903 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $6,652,526,000 after purchasing an additional 14,396,655 shares during the period. Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of Blackstone during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $708,859,000. International Assets Investment Management LLC raised its holdings in Blackstone by 13,816.5% in the fourth quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 3,623,868 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $4,744,370,000 after purchasing an additional 3,597,828 shares in the last quarter. Capital World Investors boosted its holdings in shares of Blackstone by 7.5% during the 1st quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 36,285,872 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $4,766,875,000 after buying an additional 2,546,886 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Lone Pine Capital LLC bought a new position in shares of Blackstone in the 4th quarter worth about $290,514,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 70.00% of the company’s stock.

Blackstone Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:BX opened at $122.23 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61, a current ratio of 0.79 and a quick ratio of 0.79. Blackstone has a 1 year low of $88.59 and a 1 year high of $133.56. The stock has a market capitalization of $87.35 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 43.19, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.04 and a beta of 1.50. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $122.37 and its 200 day simple moving average is $124.53.

Blackstone (NYSE:BX) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 18th. The asset manager reported $0.98 earnings per share for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $0.98. The company had revenue of $3.69 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.56 billion. Blackstone had a return on equity of 17.33% and a net margin of 20.84%. Blackstone’s revenue for the quarter was up 166.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $0.97 EPS. As a group, research analysts predict that Blackstone will post 4.77 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Blackstone Cuts Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, May 6th. Stockholders of record on Monday, April 29th were given a dividend of $0.83 per share. This represents a $3.32 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.72%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, April 26th. Blackstone’s dividend payout ratio is presently 117.31%.

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.