Lombard Odier Asset Management Europe Ltd Decreases Stock Position in MarketAxess Holdings Inc. $MKTX

Lombard Odier Asset Management Europe Ltd lessened its stake in MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) by 99.5% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 23,500 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after selling 4,590,750 shares during the period. Lombard Odier Asset Management Europe Ltd’s holdings in MarketAxess were worth $4,259,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of MKTX. Jones Financial Companies Lllp lifted its stake in shares of MarketAxess by 151.0% in the 1st quarter. Jones Financial Companies Lllp now owns 2,683 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $580,000 after acquiring an additional 1,614 shares during the last quarter. Empowered Funds LLC lifted its stake in shares of MarketAxess by 8.4% in the 1st quarter. Empowered Funds LLC now owns 1,716 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $371,000 after acquiring an additional 133 shares during the last quarter. Woodline Partners LP lifted its stake in shares of MarketAxess by 40.7% in the 1st quarter. Woodline Partners LP now owns 3,185 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $689,000 after acquiring an additional 921 shares during the last quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. lifted its stake in shares of MarketAxess by 200.0% in the 1st quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 120 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $26,000 after acquiring an additional 80 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Sivia Capital Partners LLC bought a new stake in shares of MarketAxess in the 2nd quarter valued at about $406,000. Institutional investors own 99.01% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts have recently weighed in on MKTX shares. Rothschild & Co Redburn reissued a “neutral” rating and issued a $134.00 target price (down from $189.00) on shares of MarketAxess in a research note on Thursday, June 11th. Bank of America raised MarketAxess from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $170.00 price objective on the stock in a research report on Friday, June 12th. Weiss Ratings cut MarketAxess from a “hold (c-)” rating to a “sell (d+)” rating in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. Argus cut MarketAxess from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 17th. Finally, UBS Group cut their price objective on MarketAxess from $225.00 to $215.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, May 11th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, eight have assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $183.10.

MarketAxess Stock Performance

Shares of MKTX opened at $124.81 on Wednesday. The company has a quick ratio of 2.17, a current ratio of 2.17 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.19. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $145.84 and its 200-day moving average price is $164.78. MarketAxess Holdings Inc. has a 52 week low of $113.29 and a 52 week high of $225.59. The stock has a market cap of $4.44 billion, a P/E ratio of 14.75, a P/E/G ratio of 3.92 and a beta of 0.86.

MarketAxess (NASDAQ:MKTX) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 7th. The financial services provider reported $2.25 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.15 by $0.10. MarketAxess had a return on equity of 22.28% and a net margin of 35.53%.The firm had revenue of $233.38 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $231.91 million. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $1.87 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.9% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts anticipate that MarketAxess Holdings Inc. will post 8 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

MarketAxess Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, June 3rd. Investors of record on Wednesday, May 20th were given a $0.78 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, May 20th. This represents a $3.12 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.5%. MarketAxess’s dividend payout ratio is 36.88%.

About MarketAxess

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.