Valued Retirements Inc. Purchases Shares of 3,611 Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX)

Valued Retirements Inc. bought a new position in Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) during the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund bought 3,611 shares of the asset manager’s stock, valued at approximately $553,000.

Other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. West Financial Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Blackstone during the third quarter worth approximately $27,000. EdgeRock Capital LLC acquired a new stake in Blackstone during the 2nd quarter valued at $27,000. Ridgewood Investments LLC acquired a new position in Blackstone in the second quarter worth $31,000. Raleigh Capital Management Inc. increased its stake in shares of Blackstone by 32.1% in the third quarter. Raleigh Capital Management Inc. now owns 255 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $39,000 after buying an additional 62 shares in the last quarter. Finally, J.Safra Asset Management Corp acquired a new position in Blackstone during the 2nd quarter worth about $32,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 70.00% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts have recently issued reports on BX shares. Redburn Atlantic initiated coverage on shares of Blackstone in a research report on Tuesday, August 27th. They set a “neutral” rating and a $134.00 target price on the stock. Evercore ISI increased their price objective on Blackstone from $148.00 to $155.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, October 14th. Piper Sandler lowered Blackstone from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $149.00 price target on the stock. in a research note on Wednesday, October 9th. Bank of America boosted their price objective on Blackstone from $171.00 to $192.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, October 18th. Finally, Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on shares of Blackstone from $164.00 to $177.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 10th. Twelve research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $164.25.

Blackstone Stock Down 0.9 %

NYSE:BX opened at $185.39 on Tuesday. The stock has a market cap of $133.85 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 63.71, a PEG ratio of 1.59 and a beta of 1.51. The company has a current ratio of 0.71, a quick ratio of 0.71 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.58. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $173.07 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $147.64. Blackstone Inc. has a 1 year low of $112.09 and a 1 year high of $200.96.

Blackstone (NYSE:BX) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, October 17th. The asset manager reported $1.01 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.91 by $0.10. The business had revenue of $2.43 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.37 billion. Blackstone had a return on equity of 17.53% and a net margin of 19.46%. As a group, equities analysts expect that Blackstone Inc. will post 4.4 earnings per share for the current year.

Blackstone Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, November 4th. Shareholders of record on Monday, October 28th were issued a dividend of $0.86 per share. This represents a $3.44 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.86%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, October 28th. This is a boost from Blackstone’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.82. Blackstone’s dividend payout ratio is 118.21%.

Insider Activity

In related news, Director Joseph Baratta sold 116,448 shares of Blackstone stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, October 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $150.81, for a total value of $17,561,522.88. Following the sale, the director now owns 799,749 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $120,610,146.69. The trade was a 12.71 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider John G. Finley sold 42,249 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, November 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $175.94, for a total value of $7,433,289.06. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 387,137 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $68,112,883.78. This represents a 9.84 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Corporate insiders own 1.00% of the company’s stock.

Blackstone 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.