McKinley Carter Wealth Services Inc. Increases Stake in Blackstone Inc. $BX

McKinley Carter Wealth Services Inc. boosted its stake in Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) by 2.3% during the second quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 4,950 shares of the asset manager’s stock after purchasing an additional 110 shares during the period. McKinley Carter Wealth Services Inc.’s holdings in Blackstone were worth $740,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in BX. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC increased its stake in shares of Blackstone by 519,669.1% during 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 period. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Blackstone by 1.6% during 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 period. Nuveen LLC purchased a new position in shares of Blackstone during the first quarter valued at approximately $151,524,000. Amundi increased its stake in shares of Blackstone by 69.3% during the first quarter. Amundi now owns 2,421,502 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $323,000,000 after buying an additional 990,947 shares during the period. Finally, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Blackstone by 16.3% during 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 buying an additional 742,829 shares during the period. 70.00% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts have commented on BX shares. Dbs Bank raised Blackstone to a “moderate buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 12th. Evercore ISI raised their price objective on Blackstone from $165.00 to $197.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, July 25th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised their price objective on Blackstone from $168.00 to $180.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, July 25th. Bank of America lowered their price objective on Blackstone from $200.00 to $199.00 in a research report on Friday, October 3rd. Finally, JMP Securities raised their price objective on Blackstone from $180.00 to $195.00 and gave the company a “market outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, July 25th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, ten have assigned a Buy rating and nine have given a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Blackstone currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $179.00.

Blackstone Trading Down 4.2%

Blackstone stock opened at $153.88 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 0.74, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $172.53 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $154.17. Blackstone Inc. has a 12 month low of $115.66 and a 12 month high of $200.96. The company has a market capitalization of $113.42 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 41.37, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.31 and a beta of 1.77.

Blackstone (NYSE:BX) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Friday, November 22nd. The asset manager reported $0.97 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter. The firm had revenue of $2.49 billion for the quarter. Blackstone had a return on equity of 20.47% and a net margin of 20.83%. As a group, equities analysts predict that Blackstone Inc. will post 5.87 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Blackstone Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, August 11th. Stockholders of record on Monday, August 4th were issued a dividend of $1.03 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, August 4th. This is an increase from Blackstone’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.93. This represents a $4.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.7%. Blackstone’s dividend payout ratio is currently 110.75%.

Insider Activity

In other news, insider Vikrant Sawhney sold 50,850 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $173.64, for a total transaction of $8,829,594.00. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 737,248 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $128,015,742.72. This represents a 6.45% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, major shareholder Private Multi-Asset Blackstone acquired 2,538,071 shares of Blackstone stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, September 22nd. The shares were purchased at an average price of $25.61 per share, with a total value of $64,999,998.31. Following the transaction, the insider owned 7,506,209 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $192,234,012.49. The trade was a 51.09% increase in their position. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders purchased 3,727,877 shares of company stock valued at $95,046,625 and sold 16,984,634 shares valued at $155,181,346. Company 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.