Blackstone Inc. $BX Shares Sold by AlphaQuest LLC

AlphaQuest LLC cut its stake in shares of Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) by 91.6% in the second quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The firm owned 740 shares of the asset manager’s stock after selling 8,066 shares during the period. AlphaQuest LLC’s holdings in Blackstone were worth $111,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of BX. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC raised its position in shares of Blackstone by 519,669.1% in the second 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 buying an additional 70,118,948 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in shares of Blackstone by 1.6% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 67,997,581 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $9,504,702,000 after buying an additional 1,102,949 shares during the last quarter. Nuveen LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Blackstone in the first quarter valued at about $151,524,000. Amundi grew its holdings in shares of Blackstone by 69.3% in the first quarter. Amundi now owns 2,421,502 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $323,000,000 after purchasing an additional 990,947 shares during the period. Finally, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Blackstone by 16.3% in the first quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 5,292,320 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $739,761,000 after purchasing an additional 742,829 shares during the period. 70.00% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Blackstone Trading Down 1.0%

Shares of BX stock opened at $142.94 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.60, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a current ratio of 0.75. The stock has a market capitalization of $105.36 billion, a P/E ratio of 40.84, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.18 and a beta of 1.77. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $167.43 and a 200 day moving average price of $157.18. Blackstone Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $115.66 and a fifty-two week high of $200.96.

Blackstone (NYSE:BX) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Friday, November 22nd. The asset manager reported $0.97 earnings per share for the quarter. The firm had revenue of $2.49 billion during the quarter. Blackstone had a net margin of 20.56% and a return on equity of 22.30%. Equities research analysts predict that Blackstone Inc. will post 5.87 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Blackstone Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, November 10th. Investors of record on Monday, November 3rd will be paid a $1.29 dividend. This is an increase from Blackstone’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.03. This represents a $5.16 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.6%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, November 3rd. Blackstone’s payout ratio is presently 147.43%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, Director Joseph Baratta sold 113,000 shares of Blackstone stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, September 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $175.69, for a total value of $19,852,970.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director owned 695,757 shares in the company, valued at $122,237,547.33. The trade was a 13.97% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. 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 stock was sold at an average price of $6.26, for a total transaction of $104,478,673.84. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Over the last ninety days, insiders have bought 2,551,515 shares of company stock valued at $67,038,327 and have sold 16,884,634 shares valued at $138,445,346. Insiders own 1.00% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts recently issued reports on BX shares. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $177.00 to $176.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Friday, October 24th. Jefferies Financial Group dropped their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $207.00 to $199.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, October 7th. The Goldman Sachs Group upped their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $173.00 to $174.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, October 24th. TD Cowen dropped their price target on shares of Blackstone from $208.00 to $205.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, October 24th. Finally, Dbs Bank upgraded shares of Blackstone to a “moderate buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 12th. Eleven investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and nine have issued a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $179.74.

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.