CME Group (NASDAQ:CME) Upgraded at Wall Street Zen

Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of CME Group (NASDAQ:CME) from a strong sell rating to a sell rating in a research report report published on Saturday morning,Wall Street Zen reports.

Several other research firms have also weighed in on CME. Barclays dropped their price objective on shares of CME Group from $316.00 to $270.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, July 9th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised shares of CME Group from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $305.00 target price for the company in a research note on Thursday, June 18th. Raymond James Financial restated an “outperform” rating and set a $320.00 price target on shares of CME Group in a report on Thursday, July 2nd. Weiss Ratings downgraded shares of CME Group from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 11th. Finally, Bank of America increased their price objective on CME Group from $226.00 to $230.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a report on Thursday, July 23rd. Nine investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have given a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $288.56.

CME Group Trading Down 0.1%

Shares of NASDAQ CME opened at $285.50 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.02, a current ratio of 1.02 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13. CME Group has a 12 month low of $218.31 and a 12 month high of $329.16. The company has a market cap of $102.66 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.22, a P/E/G ratio of 3.40 and a beta of 0.23. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $254.60 and a 200-day simple moving average of $278.79.

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

CME Group Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, September 25th. Investors of record on Wednesday, September 9th will be issued a $1.30 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, September 9th. This represents a $5.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.8%. CME Group’s dividend payout ratio is currently 44.11%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other CME Group news, Director William R. Shepard bought 325 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, June 25th. The shares were purchased at an average cost of $230.57 per share, with a total value of $74,935.25. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 260,442 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $60,050,111.94. This represents a 0.12% increase in their position. The purchase was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. 0.30% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of CME Group

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. California State Teachers Retirement System raised its stake in shares of CME Group by 21,954.4% in the 2nd quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System now owns 131,243,023 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $28,982,397,000 after acquiring an additional 130,647,934 shares in the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. acquired a new position in CME Group during the second quarter valued at approximately $6,749,965,000. State Street Corp raised its position in shares of CME Group by 0.4% in the fourth quarter. State Street Corp now owns 16,144,525 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $4,408,747,000 after purchasing an additional 56,725 shares during the period. Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of CME Group in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $1,523,241,000. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp lifted its stake in shares of CME Group by 2.8% in the fourth quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 4,924,475 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $1,344,776,000 after buying an additional 134,242 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 87.75% of the company’s stock.

CME Group Company 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.