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What's in Store for Blackstone (BX) Stock in Q1 Earnings?

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The Blackstone Group L.P. (BX - Free Report) is scheduled to report first-quarter 2017 results before the opening bell on Apr 20.

Last quarter, the company’s economic net income surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate driven by a significant rise in revenues, which was partially offset by higher expenses. Also, assets under management (AUM) growth remained impressive for the quarter.

The earnings beat and the gradually improving operating environment helped Blackstone’s shares gain nearly 6% in the last three months (ended Mar 31).

However, Blackstone’s activities during the quarter failed to win analysts’ confidence. The Zacks Consensus Estimate of 68 cents for the quarter declined by almost 4.2% in the last 30 days.

Nonetheless, Blackstone has a decent earnings surprise history having beaten the Zacks Consensus Estimate in three of the trailing four quarters, as is evident from the chart below:
 

What to Expect in Q1?

On the expense side, compensation and benefit costs are expected to have risen in the quarter because of the company’s well-performing funds that require more headcount.

With improvement in the overall economic scenario, the company’s fund-raising ability should aid the uptrend in its fee-earning AUM and total AUM. This will lead to stable or improving fee income for the company.

Also, Blackstone continues to expand its investment activity to capitalize on public market dislocation and should report higher deployment of capital during the quarter.

Earnings Whispers

Our proven model cannot conclusively predict if Blackstone will manage to beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate this time around. This is because it doesn’t have the right combination of two key ingredients – a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), #2 (Buy) or #3 (Hold) – for increasing the odds of an earnings beat.

You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they’re reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.

Zacks ESP: The Earnings ESP for Blackstone is 0.00%. This is because the Most Accurate estimate of 68 cents is in line with the Zacks Consensus Estimate.

Zacks Rank: Blackstone’s Zacks Rank #3 increases the predictive power of ESP. However, we also need to have a positive ESP to be confident of an earnings beat.

Stocks that Warrant a Look

Here are some finance stocks worth considering, as they have the right combination of elements to post an earnings beat this quarter.

Ameriprise Financial, Inc. (AMP - Free Report) is slated to release results on Apr 24. It has an Earnings ESP of +0.79% and a Zacks Rank #2. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Zions Bancorporation (ZION - Free Report) has an Earnings ESP of +1.85% and carries a Zacks Rank #3. The company is also slated to release results on Apr 24.

Lazard Ltd (LAZ - Free Report) is scheduled to release results on Apr 27. It has an Earnings ESP of +6.41% and a Zacks Rank #2.

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