Blackstone Secured Lending Fund (NYSE: BXSL) stock fell -4.81% on Friday to $23.36 against a previous-day closing price of $24.54. With 1.25 million shares changed hands, the volume of the stock remained heavier than its average volume of 0.59 million shares. During the session, the Asset Management company that operates in wider Financial sector, reached to the highest price of $24.36 whereas the lowest price it dropped to was $23.21. The 52-week range on BXSL shows that it touched its highest point at $37.37 and its lowest point at $21.81 during that stretch. It currently has a 1-year price target of $27.00. With its current market cap of 3.91 billion, BXSL has annualized dividend of $2.12 while the current yield stands at 9.08%.
Do You Know The Best Place To Find Gains In Volatile Markets?
In today's chaotic marketplace, the biggest gains will come from some currently-small companies that pass by older, larger businesses still stuck in a pre-pandemic world. The trick is figuring out which small caps will be tomorrow's winners. That's why StockWire News has put together a special Wealth Building Report, highlighting 3 small cap stocks set to soar in 2023.
Click here for full details and to join for free.
Sponsored
Price Performance and Earnings:
Stock performance is one of the indicators that investors use to determine whether they will profit from a stock. The price performance of BXSL was down-trending over the past week, with a drop of -2.01%, but this was up by 5.09% over a month. Three-month performance dropped to -5.37% while six-month performance fell -16.98%. A look at the trailing 12-month EPS for BXSL yields 2.73 with Next year EPS estimates of 2.66. For the next quarter, that number is 0.60. This implies an EPS growth rate of 110.60% for this year and 6.01% for next year.
Float and Shares Shorts:
At present, 169.56 million BXSL shares are outstanding with a float of 166.04 million shares on hand for trading. On Jul 14, 2022, short shares totaled 0.42 million, which was 0.25% higher than short shares on Jun 14, 2022. In addition to Mr. Brad Marshall as the firm’s Chairperson & CEO, Mr. Carlos Whitaker serves as its Pres.
Institutional Ownership:
Through their ownership of 27.85% of BXSL’s outstanding shares, institutional investors have minority control over the company. Other institutions hold 16.54% of BXSL, in contrast to 0.99% held by mutual funds. Shares owned by individuals account for 0.01%. As the largest shareholder in BXSL with 7.12% of the stake, USS Investment Management Ltd. holds 12,069,388 shares worth 12,069,388. A second-largest stockholder of BXSL, Nomura Asset Management Co., Ltd., holds 6,790,969 shares, controlling over 4.01% of the firm’s shares. Egerton Capital is the third largest shareholder in BXSL, holding 1,244,940 shares or 0.74% stake. With a 0.62% stake in BXSL, the VanEck Vectors – BDC Income ETF is the largest stakeholder. A total of 1,051,469 shares are owned by the mutual fund manager. The Columbia Flexible Capital Income, which owns about 0.18% of BXSL stock, is the second-largest Mutual Fund holder. It holds 300,000 shares valued at 7.09 million. Tri-Continental Fund holds 0.10% of the stake in BXSL, owning 170,000 shares worth 4.02 million.
Analysts Ratings:
Reading analyst opinions is an effective way to decide where to invest, and there are several opinions available for BXSL since 9 analysts follow the stock currently. There are 4 analysts who recommend BUY ratings, while 0 suggest SELL ratings. Of the remaining analysts, 4 believe that the stock is worth HOLDING, 1 give it an OVERWEIGHT rating, and 0 thinks that it’s UNDERWEIGHT. In the same way, a target price assigned to a stock can also reveal much about its potential. With BXSL analysts setting a high price target of $32.00 and a low target of $25.00, the average target price over the next 12 months is $27.00. Based on these targets, BXSL could surge 36.99% to reach the target high and rise by 7.02% to reach the target low. Reaching the average price target will result in a growth of 15.58% from current levels.
EPS: Estimates vs Actual
It is also common to use earnings estimates to evaluate a firm’s growth potential and to determine trading strategy. BXSL will report FY 2022 earnings on 02/27/2023. Analysts have provided yearly estimates in a range of $2.58 being high and $2.43 being low. For BXSL, this leads to a yearly average estimate of $2.50. The earnings surprise of a firm occurs when the actual results change from the consensus earnings estimate. Blackstone Secured Lending Fund surprised analysts by -$0.00 when it reported $0.61 EPS against a consensus estimate of $0.61. The surprise factor in the prior quarter was $0.05. Based on analyst estimates, the high estimate for the next quarter is $0.64 and the low estimate is $0.57. The average estimate for the next quarter is thus $0.60.
Summary of Insider Activity:
Insiders traded BXSL stock several times over the past three months with 0 Buys and 0 Sells. In these transactions, 0 shares were bought while 0 shares were sold. The number of buy transactions has increased to 3 while that of sell transactions has remained unmoved to 0 over the past year. The total number of shares bought during that period was 44,385 while 0 shares were sold.
