FLC Capital Advisors Buys New Holdings in CME Group Inc. $CME

FLC Capital Advisors bought a new stake in CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME) in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund bought 7,771 shares of the financial services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $2,122,000.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in CME Group by 1.7% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 35,895,583 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $9,802,366,000 after buying an additional 588,509 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new stake in CME Group in the 4th quarter valued at about $1,523,241,000. Bank of New York Mellon Corp increased its position in CME Group by 2.8% in the 4th quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 4,924,475 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $1,344,776,000 after buying an additional 134,242 shares in the last quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. increased its position in CME Group by 2.8% in the 3rd quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 4,812,914 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $1,300,450,000 after buying an additional 130,848 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Sanders Capital LLC bought a new stake in CME Group in the 3rd quarter valued at about $1,006,932,000. 87.75% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts recently commented on CME shares. Erste Group Bank lowered CME Group from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft decreased their price objective on CME Group from $342.00 to $322.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, April 23rd. Weiss Ratings reissued a “buy (a-)” rating on shares of CME Group in a report on Friday, May 29th. Morgan Stanley decreased their price objective on CME Group from $362.00 to $353.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, April 23rd. Finally, Piper Sandler boosted their price objective on CME Group from $313.00 to $329.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 15th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eight have issued a Buy rating, seven have given a Hold rating and two have issued a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, CME Group currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $305.29.

CME Group Stock Performance

Shares of CME opened at $257.40 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13, a quick ratio of 1.02 and a current ratio of 1.02. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $288.35 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $288.60. The firm has a market capitalization of $93.27 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.96, a P/E/G ratio of 2.86 and a beta of 0.21. CME Group Inc. has a 52 week low of $244.56 and a 52 week high of $329.16.

CME Group (NASDAQ:CME) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, April 22nd. The financial services provider reported $3.36 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.11 by $0.25. The firm had revenue of $1.88 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.77 billion. CME Group had a return on equity of 15.42% and a net margin of 63.19%.The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 14.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $2.80 EPS. Equities analysts forecast that CME Group Inc. will post 12.28 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

CME Group Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, June 25th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, June 9th will be issued a $1.30 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, June 9th. This represents a $5.20 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.0%. CME Group’s dividend payout ratio is currently 44.37%.

Insider Activity

In other news, General Counsel Jonathan L. Marcus sold 3,291 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $333.37, for a total value of $1,097,120.67. Following the completion of the transaction, the general counsel directly owned 7,192 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,397,597.04. This represents a 31.39% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, insider Hilda Harris Piell sold 5,753 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, May 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $304.63, for a total value of $1,752,536.39. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 27,702 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $8,438,860.26. This represents a 17.20% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold a total of 44,044 shares of company stock valued at $13,297,507 over the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.30% of the company’s stock.

CME Group Company Profile

CME Group Inc is a global markets company that operates some of the world’s largest and most liquid derivatives exchanges, including the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) and COMEX. The firm offers futures and options contracts across a broad range of asset classes — including interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, agricultural commodities and metals — and serves a diverse client base of institutional investors, commercial hedgers, brokers and retail participants.

The company’s core services include electronic trading on the CME Globex platform, central clearing through CME Clearing, and distribution of market data, indexes and analytics.