BW Gestao de Investimentos Ltda. Purchases New Position in MarketAxess Holdings Inc. $MKTX

BW Gestao de Investimentos Ltda. purchased a new stake in shares of MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor purchased 49,500 shares of the financial services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $8,972,000.

Other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Jefferies Financial Group Inc. lifted its stake in shares of MarketAxess by 444.2% during the 3rd quarter. Jefferies Financial Group Inc. now owns 38,093 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $6,638,000 after buying an additional 31,093 shares in the last quarter. Taylor Hoffman Capital Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of MarketAxess during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $3,361,000. ING Groep NV lifted its stake in shares of MarketAxess by 655.2% during the 3rd quarter. ING Groep NV now owns 13,700 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $2,387,000 after buying an additional 11,886 shares in the last quarter. Primecap Management Co. CA lifted its stake in shares of MarketAxess by 66.6% during the 3rd quarter. Primecap Management Co. CA now owns 2,230,595 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $388,681,000 after buying an additional 891,303 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC lifted its stake in shares of MarketAxess by 305.3% during the 4th quarter. Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC now owns 46,537 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $8,449,000 after buying an additional 35,056 shares in the last quarter. 99.01% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts recently commented on the stock. Weiss Ratings cut shares of MarketAxess from a “hold (c-)” rating to a “sell (d+)” rating in a research note on Wednesday, May 6th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods assumed coverage on shares of MarketAxess in a research note on Wednesday, April 8th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $195.00 price target on the stock. Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of MarketAxess from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, February 7th. UBS Group decreased their target price on shares of MarketAxess from $225.00 to $215.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, May 11th. Finally, Barclays decreased their target price on shares of MarketAxess from $189.00 to $170.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, May 11th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $190.88.

MarketAxess Price Performance

Shares of MarketAxess stock opened at $129.29 on Tuesday. MarketAxess Holdings Inc. has a 52-week low of $128.94 and a 52-week high of $228.16. The stock has a market capitalization of $4.59 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 15.28, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.93 and a beta of 0.86. The company has a fifty day moving average of $156.46 and a 200-day moving average of $168.51. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.19, a quick ratio of 2.17 and a current ratio of 2.17.

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

MarketAxess Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, June 3rd. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, May 20th will be paid a $0.78 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, May 20th. This represents a $3.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.4%. MarketAxess’s dividend payout ratio is 36.88%.

MarketAxess 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.