Blackstone Secured Lending Fund (NYSE:BXSL) Short Interest Up 32.1% in March

Blackstone Secured Lending Fund (NYSE:BXSL) was the target of a significant growth in short interest in the month of March. As of March 13th, there was short interest totaling 9,030,522 shares, a growth of 32.1% from the February 26th total of 6,838,027 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 3,008,927 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 3.0 days. Approximately 3.9% of the shares of the company are sold short.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Van ECK Associates Corp lifted its position in shares of Blackstone Secured Lending Fund by 112.1% in the fourth quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 5,149,915 shares of the company’s stock worth $135,597,000 after buying an additional 2,721,843 shares in the last quarter. UBS Group AG grew its holdings in Blackstone Secured Lending Fund by 112.5% during the 4th quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 4,731,343 shares of the company’s stock valued at $124,576,000 after buying an additional 2,504,617 shares in the last quarter. Bank of America Corp DE grew its holdings in Blackstone Secured Lending Fund by 11.9% during the 2nd quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 7,820,346 shares of the company’s stock valued at $240,476,000 after buying an additional 832,179 shares in the last quarter. Marshall Wace LLP increased its stake in Blackstone Secured Lending Fund by 1,160.9% in the 3rd quarter. Marshall Wace LLP now owns 869,964 shares of the company’s stock worth $22,680,000 after acquiring an additional 800,969 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Empyrean Capital Partners LP purchased a new stake in shares of Blackstone Secured Lending Fund during the 4th quarter worth approximately $20,142,000. Institutional investors own 36.49% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

BXSL has been the topic of a number of analyst reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price objective on Blackstone Secured Lending Fund from $27.00 to $24.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, March 13th. Wells Fargo & Company lowered shares of Blackstone Secured Lending Fund from an “equal weight” rating to an “underweight” rating and reduced their target price for the stock from $26.00 to $24.00 in a report on Wednesday, January 7th. UBS Group decreased their target price on shares of Blackstone Secured Lending Fund from $27.50 to $24.75 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, March 13th. Truist Financial dropped their price target on shares of Blackstone Secured Lending Fund from $33.00 to $30.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, March 4th. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada reduced their price objective on shares of Blackstone Secured Lending Fund from $29.00 to $28.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, March 3rd. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, two have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $27.09.

Blackstone Secured Lending Fund Price Performance

Shares of NYSE BXSL traded down $0.49 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $23.53. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 2,320,965 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,893,771. Blackstone Secured Lending Fund has a 52 week low of $23.30 and a 52 week high of $33.35. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $24.68 and a two-hundred day moving average of $26.11. The firm has a market capitalization of $5.46 billion, a PE ratio of 9.56 and a beta of 0.43.

Blackstone Secured Lending Fund (NYSE:BXSL) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, February 25th. The company reported $0.80 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.79 by $0.01. Blackstone Secured Lending Fund had a return on equity of 11.82% and a net margin of 39.69%.The company had revenue of $196.54 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $359.59 million. Analysts anticipate that Blackstone Secured Lending Fund will post 3.54 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Blackstone Secured Lending Fund Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, April 24th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, March 31st will be issued a $0.77 dividend. This represents a $3.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 13.1%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, March 31st. Blackstone Secured Lending Fund’s payout ratio is currently 125.20%.

About Blackstone Secured Lending Fund

Blackstone Secured Lending Fund (NYSE: BXSL) is a closed-end management investment company sponsored by Blackstone Credit, the credit-oriented business of Blackstone Inc Launched in May 2020, BXSL seeks to deliver attractive risk-adjusted returns primarily through current income and, to a lesser extent, capital appreciation. The fund raises capital from institutional and retail investors and deploys it into a diversified portfolio of senior secured loans and other credit instruments.

The fund’s principal investment focus is on first-lien senior secured loans and unitranche debt extended to middle-market companies across North America.