MarketAxess (NASDAQ:MKTX) Posts Quarterly Earnings Results, Beats Estimates By $0.06 EPS

MarketAxess (NASDAQ:MKTX) released its earnings results on Friday. The financial services provider reported $1.95 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.89 by $0.06, Briefing.com reports. MarketAxess had a return on equity of 22.48% and a net margin of 35.22%.The business’s revenue for the quarter was down .5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $2.00 EPS.

MarketAxess Price Performance

NASDAQ:MKTX opened at $162.53 on Friday. MarketAxess has a one year low of $108.75 and a one year high of $195.96. The stock has a market cap of $5.78 billion, a PE ratio of 19.17, a P/E/G ratio of 4.12 and a beta of 0.83. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.19, a quick ratio of 2.17 and a current ratio of 2.17. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $123.51 and a 200 day moving average price of $151.44.

MarketAxess Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, September 2nd. Investors of record on Wednesday, August 19th will be issued a $0.78 dividend. This represents a $3.12 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.9%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, August 19th. MarketAxess’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 36.79%.

Institutional Trading of MarketAxess

Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Pacer Advisors Inc. raised its holdings in shares of MarketAxess by 300.0% during the 4th quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 280 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $51,000 after acquiring an additional 210 shares during the period. Invesco Ltd. increased its position in MarketAxess by 50.2% during the fourth quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 114,619 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $20,775,000 after purchasing an additional 38,292 shares during the last quarter. Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV increased its position in MarketAxess by 227.7% during the fourth quarter. Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV now owns 29,599 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $5,365,000 after purchasing an additional 20,566 shares during the last quarter. Vident Advisory LLC raised its stake in MarketAxess by 11.3% during the fourth quarter. Vident Advisory LLC now owns 18,984 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $3,441,000 after purchasing an additional 1,931 shares during the period. Finally, EP Wealth Advisors LLC purchased a new position in MarketAxess during the fourth quarter worth about $266,000. 99.01% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research analysts recently commented on the company. UBS Group downgraded MarketAxess from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and reduced their price objective for the company from $200.00 to $167.00 in a research note on Friday, July 31st. Piper Sandler lowered their target price on shares of MarketAxess from $175.00 to $128.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, July 15th. Rothschild & Co Redburn reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and set a $134.00 target price (down from $189.00) on shares of MarketAxess in a report on Thursday, June 11th. Morgan Stanley dropped their target price on shares of MarketAxess from $195.00 to $129.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Friday, July 10th. Finally, Wall Street Zen cut shares of MarketAxess from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Saturday, August 1st. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, eleven have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, MarketAxess has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $160.18.

MarketAxess Company 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.