Danske Bank A S Purchases Shares of 228,156 CME Group Inc. $CME

Danske Bank A S acquired a new stake in shares of CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME) in the second quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund acquired 228,156 shares of the financial services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $50,384,000.

Other large investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Bridgewater Advisors Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of CME Group in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $612,000. FLC Capital Advisors purchased a new position in CME Group during the 4th quarter worth approximately $2,122,000. HighTower Advisors LLC grew its position in CME Group by 6.9% during the 4th quarter. HighTower Advisors LLC now owns 352,922 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $96,376,000 after purchasing an additional 22,692 shares in the last quarter. TD Private Client Wealth LLC raised its stake in CME Group by 132.7% during the 4th quarter. TD Private Client Wealth LLC now owns 21,228 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $5,797,000 after purchasing an additional 12,105 shares during the period. Finally, North Dakota State Investment Board acquired a new stake in CME Group during the 4th quarter valued at $3,368,000. 87.75% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of analysts have recently issued reports on CME shares. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upgraded CME Group from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $305.00 target price for the company in a report on Thursday, June 18th. Raymond James Financial reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $320.00 price target on shares of CME Group in a report on Thursday, July 2nd. Morgan Stanley upped their price target on CME Group from $324.00 to $330.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 23rd. Rothschild & Co Redburn raised CME Group from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price objective for the stock from $316.00 to $323.00 in a research note on Thursday, June 11th. Finally, Erste Group Bank lowered CME Group from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, June 5th. Ten equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have given a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $291.81.

CME Group Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ CME opened at $271.54 on Wednesday. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $250.82 and its 200-day simple moving average is $279.97. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13, a quick ratio of 1.02 and a current ratio of 1.02. CME Group Inc. has a 52 week low of $218.31 and a 52 week high of $329.16. The firm has a market cap of $97.64 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.03, a P/E/G ratio of 3.14 and a beta of 0.23.

CME Group (NASDAQ:CME) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, July 22nd. The financial services provider reported $2.99 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.91 by $0.08. The firm had revenue of $1.71 billion during 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 revenue for the quarter was up .8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $2.96 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts expect that CME Group Inc. will post 12.27 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

CME Group Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, September 25th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, September 9th will be given a $1.30 dividend. 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 (DPR) is currently 44.11%.

Insider Buying and Selling at CME Group

In other news, Director William R. Shepard acquired 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 purchase, the director owned 260,442 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $60,050,111.94. This represents a 0.12% increase in their ownership of the stock. The acquisition was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Insiders own 0.30% of the company’s stock.

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.