Blackstone Mortgage Trust Target of Unusually High Options Trading (NYSE:BXMT)

Blackstone Mortgage Trust, Inc. (NYSE:BXMT) saw unusually large options trading activity on Tuesday. Stock investors bought 67,797 call options on the stock. This is an increase of approximately 8,809% compared to the average daily volume of 761 call options.

Institutional Trading of Blackstone Mortgage Trust

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in BXMT. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC purchased a new position in shares of Blackstone Mortgage Trust during the second quarter worth about $35,101,000. Norges Bank purchased a new position in Blackstone Mortgage Trust during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $34,608,000. Bamco Inc. NY increased its position in Blackstone Mortgage Trust by 1,498.1% during the second quarter. Bamco Inc. NY now owns 1,594,613 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $30,696,000 after buying an additional 1,494,830 shares during the period. UBS Group AG lifted its stake in Blackstone Mortgage Trust by 24.4% in the third quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 3,082,005 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $56,740,000 after buying an additional 603,588 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Invesco Ltd. boosted its holdings in shares of Blackstone Mortgage Trust by 70.8% in the third quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 1,077,590 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $19,838,000 after acquiring an additional 446,838 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 64.15% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have recently commented on BXMT. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on shares of Blackstone Mortgage Trust from $19.00 to $20.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 4th. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “hold (c-)” rating on shares of Blackstone Mortgage Trust in a report on Monday. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised Blackstone Mortgage Trust from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and increased their target price for the company from $20.00 to $21.00 in a report on Monday, November 17th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating and four have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Blackstone Mortgage Trust presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $20.33.

Blackstone Mortgage Trust Price Performance

BXMT stock opened at $19.76 on Wednesday. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $19.19 and a 200-day simple moving average of $19.17. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.31 billion, a PE ratio of 31.86 and a beta of 1.08. Blackstone Mortgage Trust has a 1 year low of $16.51 and a 1 year high of $21.24.

Blackstone Mortgage Trust (NYSE:BXMT) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, October 29th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.24 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.19 by $0.05. Blackstone Mortgage Trust had a return on equity of 4.06% and a net margin of 7.53%.The company had revenue of $132.71 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $103.56 million. On average, equities research analysts expect that Blackstone Mortgage Trust will post 1.65 EPS for the current year.

Blackstone Mortgage Trust Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, January 15th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, December 31st will be issued a $0.47 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, December 31st. This represents a $1.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 9.5%. Blackstone Mortgage Trust’s dividend payout ratio is presently 303.23%.

About Blackstone Mortgage Trust

Blackstone Mortgage Trust, Inc (NYSE: BXMT) is a publicly traded real estate finance company that originates, acquires and manages commercial mortgage loans and other CRE debt investments. As an externally managed real estate investment trust (REIT), it seeks to generate attractive risk-adjusted returns through the deployment of senior floating-rate and fixed-rate loans backed by income-producing properties.

The firm’s core business activities span the origination of senior mortgage loans, the acquisition of loan portfolios and other real estate debt instruments, and the active management of those investments.