Garden State Investment Advisory Services LLC Buys 397 Shares of Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX)

Garden State Investment Advisory Services LLC raised its position in shares of Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) by 11.3% during the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 3,907 shares of the asset manager’s stock after purchasing an additional 397 shares during the period. Garden State Investment Advisory Services LLC’s holdings in Blackstone were worth $599,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the business. State Street Corp lifted its stake in shares of Blackstone by 1.2% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 30,020,426 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $4,597,028,000 after purchasing an additional 348,751 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in Blackstone by 2.3% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 14,896,413 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $2,272,227,000 after purchasing an additional 336,308 shares during the last quarter. Wulff Hansen & CO. grew its position in Blackstone by 12,192.7% in the 2nd quarter. Wulff Hansen & CO. now owns 7,340,845 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $908,797,000 after acquiring an additional 7,281,128 shares during the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc boosted its stake in shares of Blackstone by 2.3% during the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 6,266,207 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $775,758,000 after purchasing an additional 141,616 shares during the period. Finally, International Assets Investment Management LLC increased its position in shares of Blackstone by 15,357.3% during the third quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 4,201,150 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $6,433,220,000 after acquiring an additional 4,173,971 shares during the period. 70.00% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

BX has been the subject of a number of research reports. Barclays upped their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $174.00 to $199.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Monday. Evercore ISI increased their price target on shares of Blackstone from $148.00 to $155.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, October 14th. Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on Blackstone from $164.00 to $177.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 10th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft boosted their price target on Blackstone from $172.00 to $182.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, November 11th. Finally, Piper Sandler downgraded 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. Thirteen equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Blackstone presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $164.69.

Blackstone Price Performance

Shares of Blackstone stock traded up $0.10 on Friday, hitting $190.40. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 390,175 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,382,660. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $175.41 and a 200-day moving average price of $148.70. Blackstone Inc. has a 1 year low of $114.88 and a 1 year high of $200.96. The company has a market capitalization of $137.47 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 65.39, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.63 and a beta of 1.51. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.58, a quick ratio of 0.71 and a current ratio of 0.71.

Blackstone (NYSE:BX) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, October 17th. The asset manager reported $1.01 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.91 by $0.10. Blackstone had a return on equity of 17.53% and a net margin of 19.46%. The business had revenue of $2.43 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.37 billion. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Blackstone Inc. will post 4.43 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Blackstone Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, November 4th. Stockholders of record on Monday, October 28th were issued a dividend of $0.86 per share. This is a boost from Blackstone’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.82. This represents a $3.44 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.81%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, October 28th. Blackstone’s payout ratio is currently 118.21%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, Director Joseph Baratta sold 116,448 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, October 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $150.81, for a total value of $17,561,522.88. Following the sale, the director now directly 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 position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, insider John G. Finley sold 42,249 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, November 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $175.94, for a total value of $7,433,289.06. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 387,137 shares in the company, valued at $68,112,883.78. This trade 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.

About Blackstone

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.