Diversify Advisory Services LLC Purchases New Shares in CME Group Inc. $CME

Diversify Advisory Services LLC acquired a new stake in CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME) in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund acquired 40,726 shares of the financial services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $10,400,000.

Several other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the company. Whipplewood Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of CME Group by 2,075.0% during the 1st 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 acquired a new position in CME Group in the 4th quarter worth about $27,000. Hilton Head Capital Partners LLC purchased a new position in CME Group during the fourth quarter worth approximately $28,000. Legacy Wealth Managment LLC ID boosted its position in CME Group by 191.9% during the fourth quarter. Legacy Wealth Managment LLC ID now owns 108 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $29,000 after purchasing an additional 71 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Main Street Group LTD acquired a new stake in CME Group in the first quarter valued at approximately $32,000. 87.75% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have recently commented on CME. Weiss Ratings cut CME Group from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 11th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price target on shares of CME Group from $249.00 to $250.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 23rd. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised shares of CME Group from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $305.00 price target for the company in a report on Thursday, June 18th. Erste Group Bank cut shares of CME Group from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, June 5th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group decreased their price objective on shares of CME Group from $267.00 to $245.00 and set a “sell” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, June 30th. Ten equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have assigned a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $291.81.

CME Group Stock Performance

NASDAQ CME opened at $271.54 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13, a current ratio of 1.02 and a quick ratio of 1.02. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $250.82 and its 200-day simple moving average is $279.97. The company has a market cap of $97.64 billion, a PE ratio of 23.03, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.14 and a beta of 0.23. CME Group Inc. has a 1-year low of $218.31 and a 1-year high of $329.16.

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

CME Group Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced 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. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, September 9th. This represents a $5.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.9%. CME Group’s dividend payout ratio is presently 44.11%.

Insider Activity

In other CME Group news, Director William R. Shepard bought 325 shares of CME Group stock in a transaction dated Thursday, June 25th. The stock was 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 directly owned 260,442 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $60,050,111.94. This represents a 0.12% increase in their ownership of the stock. The purchase was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. 0.30% of the stock is owned by insiders.

CME Group 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.