350 Shares in MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI) Purchased by Arlington Financial Advisors LLC

Arlington Financial Advisors LLC bought a new stake in MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI) in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund bought 350 shares of the technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $210,000.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in MSCI. GAMMA Investing LLC grew its holdings in MSCI by 48.7% in the third quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 415 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $242,000 after purchasing an additional 136 shares during the period. Mather Group LLC. grew its stake in shares of MSCI by 5.7% during the 3rd quarter. Mather Group LLC. now owns 783 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $456,000 after buying an additional 42 shares during the period. Atomi Financial Group Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of MSCI during the 3rd quarter worth $299,000. CWM LLC increased its holdings in shares of MSCI by 50.3% during the 3rd quarter. CWM LLC now owns 3,818 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $2,226,000 after buying an additional 1,278 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Wedmont Private Capital raised its position in shares of MSCI by 7.5% in the 3rd quarter. Wedmont Private Capital now owns 1,170 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $684,000 after buying an additional 82 shares during the period. 89.97% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Transactions at MSCI

In other news, CEO Henry A. Fernandez bought 2,900 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, December 5th. The stock was bought at an average price of $612.80 per share, for a total transaction of $1,777,120.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 330,379 shares in the company, valued at $202,456,251.20. The trade was a 0.89 % increase in their ownership of the stock. The purchase was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Insiders own 3.20% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages have commented on MSCI. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price target on MSCI from $570.00 to $600.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, October 11th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their price target on shares of MSCI from $700.00 to $680.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, January 30th. UBS Group decreased their price objective on shares of MSCI from $695.00 to $680.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Morgan Stanley raised their target price on shares of MSCI from $662.00 to $695.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 12th. Finally, Wolfe Research raised shares of MSCI from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 12th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eleven have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, MSCI presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $649.23.

MSCI Stock Performance

Shares of MSCI opened at $579.13 on Friday. MSCI Inc. has a one year low of $439.95 and a one year high of $642.45. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $605.76 and a 200 day moving average price of $584.53. The company has a market capitalization of $45.39 billion, a P/E ratio of 41.19, a P/E/G ratio of 2.67 and a beta of 1.11.

MSCI (NYSE:MSCI) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, January 29th. The technology company reported $4.18 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.96 by $0.22. MSCI had a negative return on equity of 156.08% and a net margin of 38.83%. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $3.68 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that MSCI Inc. will post 16.86 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

MSCI Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 28th. Shareholders of record on Friday, February 14th will be issued a dividend of $1.80 per share. This is a positive change from MSCI’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.60. This represents a $7.20 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.24%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, February 14th. MSCI’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 45.52%.

MSCI Profile

MSCI Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides critical decision support tools and solutions for the investment community to manage investment processes worldwide. The Index segment provides indexes for use in various areas of the investment process, including indexed financial product, such as ETFs, mutual funds, annuities, futures, options, structured products, and over-the-counter derivatives; performance benchmarking; portfolio construction and rebalancing; and asset allocation, as well as licenses GICS and GICS Direct.