MarketAxess Holdings Inc. Announces Quarterly Dividend of $0.74 (NASDAQ:MKTX)

MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, October 17th,RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, November 20th will be given a dividend of 0.74 per share by the financial services provider on Wednesday, December 4th. This represents a $2.96 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.11%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, November 20th.

MarketAxess has raised its dividend by an average of 6.3% per year over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 16 consecutive years. MarketAxess has a payout ratio of 35.7% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect MarketAxess to earn $8.18 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.96 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 36.2%.

MarketAxess Price Performance

NASDAQ:MKTX opened at $267.33 on Tuesday. MarketAxess has a 1 year low of $192.42 and a 1 year high of $297.97. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $272.48 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $235.98. The company has a market cap of $10.08 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 36.22, a PEG ratio of 11.81 and a beta of 1.05.

MarketAxess (NASDAQ:MKTX) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, November 6th. The financial services provider reported $1.90 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.85 by $0.05. The business had revenue of $206.70 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $207.17 million. MarketAxess had a return on equity of 20.93% and a net margin of 34.32%. The company’s revenue was up 20.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $1.46 EPS. As a group, analysts anticipate that MarketAxess will post 7.33 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity at MarketAxess

In other MarketAxess news, Chairman Richard M. Mcvey sold 10,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, November 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $267.67, for a total transaction of $2,676,700.00. Following the sale, the chairman now owns 562,029 shares in the company, valued at approximately $150,438,302.43. The trade was a 1.75 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. 2.66% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

MarketAxess declared that its Board of Directors has approved a share buyback program on Tuesday, August 6th that authorizes the company to repurchase $250.00 million in shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the financial services provider to reacquire up to 2.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are generally an indication that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts have recently commented on MKTX shares. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their target price on MarketAxess from $204.00 to $233.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, September 30th. UBS Group boosted their price objective on MarketAxess from $330.00 to $335.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, November 7th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft boosted their price objective on MarketAxess from $258.00 to $264.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a report on Monday, November 11th. Piper Sandler restated a “neutral” rating and set a $265.00 price objective on shares of MarketAxess in a report on Thursday, November 7th. Finally, Barclays boosted their price objective on MarketAxess from $237.00 to $268.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Monday, October 7th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, MarketAxess has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $267.50.

About MarketAxess

MarketAxess Holdings Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates an electronic trading platform for institutional investor and broker-dealer companies worldwide. The company offers trading technology that provides liquidity access in U.S. high-grade bonds, U.S. high-yield bonds, emerging market debt, eurobonds, municipal bonds, U.S.