Clear Harbor Asset Management LLC Buys New Stake in CME Group Inc. $CME

Clear Harbor Asset Management LLC bought a new position in CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME) during the 2nd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund bought 33,982 shares of the financial services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $7,504,000.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Whipplewood Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in CME Group by 2,075.0% during the first quarter. Whipplewood Advisors LLC now owns 87 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $26,000 after acquiring an additional 83 shares during the period. Elkhorn Partners Limited Partnership bought a new position in shares of CME Group in the fourth quarter worth about $27,000. Hilton Head Capital Partners LLC acquired a new position in shares of CME Group during the 4th quarter worth about $28,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of CME Group during the 2nd quarter worth about $28,000. Finally, Legacy Wealth Managment LLC ID boosted its stake in CME Group by 191.9% during the 4th quarter. Legacy Wealth Managment LLC ID now owns 108 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $29,000 after purchasing an additional 71 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 87.75% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms have issued reports on CME. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft lowered CME Group from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and lowered their target price for the company from $286.00 to $270.00 in a report on Wednesday. TD Cowen cut their price target on CME Group from $323.00 to $273.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Monday, June 22nd. Barclays reduced their price objective on CME Group from $316.00 to $270.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, July 9th. The Goldman Sachs Group lowered their price objective on shares of CME Group from $267.00 to $245.00 and set a “sell” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, June 30th. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised shares of CME Group from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $305.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Thursday, June 18th. Nine equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have assigned a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $288.56.

CME Group Stock Up 1.5%

CME stock opened at $274.98 on Friday. CME Group Inc. has a twelve month low of $218.31 and a twelve month high of $329.16. The company has a market cap of $98.88 billion, a PE ratio of 23.32, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.20 and a beta of 0.23. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $251.17 and its 200 day simple moving average is $279.65. The company has a quick ratio of 1.02, a current ratio of 1.02 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13.

CME Group (NASDAQ:CME) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 22nd. The financial services provider reported $2.99 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.91 by $0.08. The firm had revenue of $1.71 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.68 billion. CME Group had a return on equity of 15.60% and a net margin of 63.30%.The company’s quarterly revenue was up .8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $2.96 earnings per share. On average, research analysts anticipate that CME Group Inc. will post 12.27 earnings per share for the current year.

CME Group Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, September 25th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, September 9th will be issued a dividend of $1.30 per share. This represents a $5.20 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.9%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, September 9th. CME Group’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 44.11%.

Insider Activity

In other news, Director William R. Shepard acquired 325 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, June 25th. The shares were acquired at an average cost of $230.57 per share, for a total transaction of $74,935.25. Following the completion of the transaction, the director owned 260,442 shares in the company, valued at approximately $60,050,111.94. This trade represents a 0.12% increase in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Corporate insiders own 0.30% of the company’s stock.

About CME Group

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.