California State Teachers Retirement System Sells 15,486 Shares of CME Group Inc. $CME

California State Teachers Retirement System lowered its stake in CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME) by 2.5% during the 1st quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 595,089 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after selling 15,486 shares during the quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System’s holdings in CME Group were worth $175,760,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Asset Dedication LLC raised its stake in CME Group by 64.9% during the fourth quarter. Asset Dedication LLC now owns 94 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $26,000 after buying an additional 37 shares during the last quarter. Whipplewood Advisors LLC grew its stake in shares of CME Group by 2,075.0% in the first quarter. Whipplewood Advisors LLC now owns 87 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $26,000 after acquiring an additional 83 shares during the last quarter. FNY Investment Advisers LLC purchased a new stake in shares of CME Group in the fourth quarter worth $27,000. Elkhorn Partners Limited Partnership bought a new position in shares of CME Group during the fourth quarter valued at $27,000. Finally, Hilton Head Capital Partners LLC purchased a new position in shares of CME Group in the 4th quarter worth about $28,000. Institutional investors own 87.75% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on CME. Weiss Ratings cut shares of CME Group from a “buy (b)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a research note on Monday, July 13th. UBS Group reduced their price objective on shares of CME Group from $310.00 to $260.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, July 6th. Erste Group Bank cut shares of CME Group from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, June 5th. Rothschild & Co Redburn upgraded shares of CME Group from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their target price for the stock from $316.00 to $323.00 in a research note on Thursday, June 11th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price target on shares of CME Group from $249.00 to $250.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a report on Thursday, July 23rd. Eleven investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, four have assigned a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, CME Group presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $291.81.

CME Group Stock Up 1.8%

CME stock opened at $260.00 on Wednesday. CME Group Inc. has a 1-year low of $218.31 and a 1-year high of $329.16. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $252.29 and a 200-day moving average price of $281.12. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13, a current ratio of 1.02 and a quick ratio of 1.02. The stock has a market capitalization of $94.21 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.05, a P/E/G ratio of 2.97 and a beta of 0.25.

CME Group (NASDAQ:CME) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 22nd. The financial services provider reported $2.99 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.91 by $0.08. CME Group had a return on equity of 15.60% and a net margin of 63.30%.The firm had revenue of $1.71 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.68 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $2.96 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up .8% on a year-over-year basis. Equities analysts forecast that CME Group Inc. will post 12.27 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

CME Group Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, June 25th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, June 9th were paid a dividend of $1.30 per share. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, June 9th. This represents a $5.20 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.0%. CME Group’s dividend payout ratio is currently 44.11%.

Insider Buying and Selling at CME Group

In other news, insider Hilda Harris Piell sold 5,753 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, May 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $304.63, for a total transaction of $1,752,536.39. Following the sale, the insider owned 27,702 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $8,438,860.26. This trade represents a 17.20% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, Director William R. Shepard purchased 325 shares of CME Group stock in a transaction dated Thursday, June 25th. The stock was bought at an average price of $230.57 per share, with a total value of $74,935.25. Following the completion of the purchase, the director directly owned 260,442 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $60,050,111.94. This trade represents a 0.12% increase in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this purchase are available in the official SEC disclosure. Company 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.