Stratos Wealth Advisors LLC Acquires 60 Shares of Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX)

Stratos Wealth Advisors LLC increased its holdings in shares of Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) by 0.1% during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 117,360 shares of the asset manager’s stock after purchasing an additional 60 shares during the period. Blackstone comprises approximately 1.0% of Stratos Wealth Advisors LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 15th largest holding. Stratos Wealth Advisors LLC’s holdings in Blackstone were worth $20,235,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. International Assets Investment Management LLC lifted its position in Blackstone by 15,357.3% in the 3rd quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 4,201,150 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $6,433,220,000 after acquiring an additional 4,173,971 shares in the last quarter. Jennison Associates LLC grew its position in Blackstone by 111.1% in the fourth quarter. Jennison Associates LLC now owns 973,348 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $167,825,000 after purchasing an additional 512,165 shares in the last quarter. Castleark Management LLC bought a new stake in Blackstone during the third quarter worth about $67,472,000. State Street Corp lifted its stake in Blackstone by 1.2% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 30,020,426 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $4,597,028,000 after acquiring an additional 348,751 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Blackstone by 2.3% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 14,896,413 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $2,272,227,000 after purchasing an additional 336,308 shares during the period. 70.00% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts have recently issued reports on the company. StockNews.com cut Blackstone from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods lifted their price target on Blackstone from $174.00 to $177.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Morgan Stanley lifted their target price on Blackstone from $164.00 to $177.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, October 10th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised their price target on shares of Blackstone from $135.00 to $150.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, October 18th. Finally, TD Cowen raised shares of Blackstone from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their target price for the stock from $149.00 to $230.00 in a report on Monday, December 9th. Thirteen equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $172.38.

Blackstone Trading Down 1.5 %

Shares of BX stock opened at $170.86 on Wednesday. The company has a market cap of $123.36 billion, a P/E ratio of 47.07, a PEG ratio of 1.18 and a beta of 1.53. Blackstone Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $115.82 and a fifty-two week high of $200.96. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $179.76 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $162.89. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61, a quick ratio of 0.71 and a current ratio of 0.67.

Blackstone (NYSE:BX) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 30th. The asset manager reported $1.69 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.50 by $0.19. Blackstone had a net margin of 20.99% and a return on equity of 19.58%. Research analysts forecast that Blackstone Inc. will post 5.86 earnings per share for the current year.

Blackstone Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, February 18th. Stockholders of record on Monday, February 10th will be given a dividend of $1.44 per share. The ex-dividend date is Monday, February 10th. This is a positive change from Blackstone’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.86. This represents a $5.76 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.37%. Blackstone’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 94.77%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Blackstone news, insider John G. Finley sold 42,249 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, November 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $175.94, for a total transaction of $7,433,289.06. Following the sale, the insider now owns 387,137 shares in the company, valued at $68,112,883.78. This represents a 9.84 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Insiders own 1.00% of the company’s stock.

Blackstone Company 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.