CRA Financial Services LLC Has $430,000 Holdings in Blackstone Inc. $BX

CRA Financial Services LLC grew its stake in shares of Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) by 3.2% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 2,875 shares of the asset manager’s stock after acquiring an additional 88 shares during the period. CRA Financial Services LLC’s holdings in Blackstone were worth $430,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Ascent Group LLC increased its holdings in shares of Blackstone by 0.9% during the fourth quarter. Ascent Group LLC now owns 8,522 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $1,469,000 after purchasing an additional 74 shares during the period. McAdam LLC increased its holdings in shares of Blackstone by 4.4% during the first quarter. McAdam LLC now owns 1,762 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $246,000 after purchasing an additional 75 shares during the period. Angeles Wealth Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Blackstone by 0.6% during the first quarter. Angeles Wealth Management LLC now owns 11,819 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $1,652,000 after purchasing an additional 76 shares during the period. Park National Corp OH increased its stake in Blackstone by 3.4% in the second quarter. Park National Corp OH now owns 2,334 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $349,000 after acquiring an additional 77 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Breakwater Capital Group increased its stake in Blackstone by 5.0% in the second quarter. Breakwater Capital Group now owns 1,613 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $241,000 after acquiring an additional 77 shares during the last quarter. 70.00% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Barclays lifted their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $168.00 to $181.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, July 25th. Piper Sandler lifted their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $157.00 to $181.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, July 28th. Citigroup reissued a “market perform” rating on shares of Blackstone in a research note on Saturday, July 19th. The Goldman Sachs Group reissued a “neutral” rating on shares of Blackstone in a research note on Friday, July 25th. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised their target price on shares of Blackstone from $168.00 to $180.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, July 25th. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and eight have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $172.38.

Blackstone Stock Performance

Shares of Blackstone stock opened at $185.77 on Tuesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $136.93 billion, a P/E ratio of 49.94, a P/E/G ratio of 1.52 and a beta of 1.77. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $173.16 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $151.89. 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 Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $115.66 and a fifty-two week high of $200.96.

Blackstone (NYSE:BX) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 24th. The asset manager reported $1.21 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.10 by $0.11. The business had revenue of $3.07 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.77 billion. Blackstone had a return on equity of 20.47% and a net margin of 20.83%.Blackstone’s quarterly revenue was up 32.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $0.98 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts forecast that Blackstone Inc. will post 5.87 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Blackstone Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, August 11th. Shareholders of record on Monday, August 4th were issued a dividend of $1.03 per share. This represents a $4.12 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.2%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, August 4th. This is a boost from Blackstone’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.93. Blackstone’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 110.75%.

Insider Activity

In other Blackstone news, major shareholder Bx Buzz Ml-1 Gp Llc sold 16,689,884 shares of Blackstone stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $6.26, for a total transaction of $104,478,673.84. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, major shareholder Holdings I. L.P. Blackstone bought 1,189,532 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, July 18th. The shares were bought at an average cost of $25.22 per share, for a total transaction of $29,999,997.04. Following the completion of the acquisition, the insider directly owned 4,178,771 shares in the company, valued at approximately $105,388,604.62. This trade represents a 39.79% increase in their position. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. In the last three months, insiders acquired 3,727,877 shares of company stock worth $95,046,625 and sold 16,871,634 shares worth $135,328,376. 1.00% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

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.