Stepstone Group price target lowered to $28 from $29 at Barclays

Barclays analyst Benjamin Budish lowered the firm’s price target on Stepstone Group to $28 from $29 and keeps an Equal Weight rating on the shares. Barclays’ house view calls for a likely recession in 2023, and it will be a more challenging year across the U.S. brokers, asset managers and exchanges, Budish tells investors in a research note. Rising rates may put some pressure on private equity returns and broader volatility is likely to continue to impact transaction levels, but absent a more material deterioration in credit, private credit across the space should continue to perform well for alternatives asset managers, says the analyst. For brokers, he thinks a more challenging macro environment should be a headwind to new account growth and trading activity going into 2023. And for crypto, Budish thinks it may still be some time before more practical and potentially disruptive use cases emerge more meaningfully. Increased regulation could be a positive catalyst, "though we caution that even with the passage of a bill next year, it could still take 12+ months before new rules are scripted and implemented," the analyst writes.