Norges Bank Acquires New Position in MarketAxess Holdings Inc. $MKTX

Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund acquired 503,855 shares of the financial services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $91,324,000. Norges Bank owned 1.36% of MarketAxess at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Amica Mutual Insurance Co. grew its stake in shares of MarketAxess by 20.6% during the 4th quarter. Amica Mutual Insurance Co. now owns 2,352 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $426,000 after acquiring an additional 401 shares during the period. Eurizon Capital SGR S.p.A. bought a new position in MarketAxess in the 4th quarter worth approximately $106,000. Rothschild Investment LLC boosted its stake in MarketAxess by 51.0% in the 4th quarter. Rothschild Investment LLC now owns 2,622 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $475,000 after purchasing an additional 886 shares during the period. Poinciana Advisors Group LLC bought a new position in MarketAxess in the 4th quarter worth approximately $219,000. Finally, Cooke & Bieler LP bought a new position in MarketAxess in the 4th quarter worth approximately $18,868,000. 99.01% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research analysts have weighed in on MKTX shares. Argus downgraded MarketAxess from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 17th. Barclays dropped their price target on MarketAxess from $189.00 to $170.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, May 11th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods started coverage on MarketAxess in a research note on Wednesday, April 8th. They issued an “outperform” rating and a $195.00 price target for the company. Weiss Ratings downgraded MarketAxess from a “hold (c-)” rating to a “sell (d+)” rating in a research note on Wednesday, May 6th. Finally, UBS Group dropped their price target on MarketAxess from $225.00 to $215.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, May 11th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $190.88.

MarketAxess Stock Down 3.1%

Shares of MKTX opened at $116.93 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $4.16 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.82, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.72 and a beta of 0.86. MarketAxess Holdings Inc. has a 1 year low of $115.55 and a 1 year high of $228.16. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $152.58 and its 200-day simple moving average is $167.09. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.19, a current ratio of 2.17 and a quick ratio of 2.17.

MarketAxess (NASDAQ:MKTX) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 7th. The financial services provider reported $2.25 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.15 by $0.10. The business had revenue of $233.38 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $231.91 million. MarketAxess had a return on equity of 22.28% and a net margin of 35.53%.The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $1.87 EPS. As a group, equities analysts expect that MarketAxess Holdings Inc. will post 8.04 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

MarketAxess Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, June 3rd. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, May 20th were issued a dividend of $0.78 per share. This represents a $3.12 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.7%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, May 20th. MarketAxess’s dividend payout ratio is 36.88%.

MarketAxess Company Profile

MarketAxess Holdings Inc operates a leading global electronic trading platform specializing in fixed-income securities and related products. The company’s network enables institutional investors and broker-dealers to trade corporate bonds, municipal securities, emerging markets debt, U.S. Treasuries and credit default swaps in an automated, multi-dealer environment. MarketAxess also offers portfolio trading, data analytics, best-execution tools and post-trade services to streamline workflows and enhance price discovery across its marketplace.

In addition to core voice-like trading protocols, MarketAxess provides Open Trading®, an anonymous, all-to-all trading protocol designed to improve liquidity and transaction efficiency.