Legacy Wealth Management LLC MS Acquires New Shares in Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX)

Legacy Wealth Management LLC MS acquired a new stake in Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) in the third quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund acquired 5,264 shares of the asset manager’s stock, valued at approximately $806,000.

A number of other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of BX. Lantz Financial LLC boosted its holdings in Blackstone by 11.7% in the 2nd quarter. Lantz Financial LLC now owns 2,762 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $342,000 after purchasing an additional 290 shares during the period. ORG Partners LLC boosted its holdings in Blackstone by 10,827.3% in the 2nd quarter. ORG Partners LLC now owns 1,202 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $147,000 after purchasing an additional 1,191 shares during the period. Fiduciary Financial Group LLC bought a new stake in shares of Blackstone during the 2nd quarter worth $410,000. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. lifted its holdings in shares of Blackstone by 3.0% during the 2nd quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 16,130 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $1,997,000 after acquiring an additional 470 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Blue Trust Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Blackstone by 936.2% during the 2nd quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 5,958 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $783,000 after acquiring an additional 5,383 shares during the last quarter. 70.00% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of analysts have recently issued reports on BX shares. Barclays lifted their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $174.00 to $199.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Monday. The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their price target on shares of Blackstone from $135.00 to $150.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, October 18th. Evercore ISI upped 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. TD Cowen upgraded shares of Blackstone from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price target for the company from $149.00 to $230.00 in a research report on Monday. Finally, Morgan Stanley upped their price target on shares of Blackstone from $164.00 to $177.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 10th. Thirteen investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Blackstone currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $164.69.

Blackstone Trading Down 0.2 %

BX stock traded down $0.34 during trading on Friday, reaching $189.96. The company had a trading volume of 682,187 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,384,311. Blackstone Inc. has a 52 week low of $114.88 and a 52 week high of $200.96. The company has a market cap of $137.15 billion, a P/E ratio of 65.39, a PEG ratio of 1.63 and a beta of 1.51. The business has a 50 day moving average of $175.41 and a 200 day moving average of $148.70. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.58, a current ratio of 0.71 and a quick ratio of 0.71.

Blackstone (NYSE:BX) last released its quarterly 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. Blackstone had a net margin of 19.46% and a return on equity of 17.53%. The company had revenue of $2.43 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.37 billion. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Blackstone Inc. will post 4.43 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Blackstone Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared 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. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, October 28th. This represents a $3.44 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.81%. Blackstone’s dividend payout ratio is presently 118.21%.

Insider Activity

In other Blackstone news, insider John G. Finley sold 42,249 shares of Blackstone 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 sale, the insider now owns 387,137 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $68,112,883.78. The trade was a 9.84 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, Director Joseph Baratta sold 116,448 shares of Blackstone stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, October 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $150.81, for a total transaction of $17,561,522.88. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 799,749 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $120,610,146.69. This trade represents a 12.71 % decrease in their position. 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.