MarketAxess (MKTX) and Its Competitors Financial Contrast

MarketAxess (NASDAQ:MKTX) is one of 1,744 publicly-traded companies in the “Capital Markets” industry, but how does it weigh in compared to its competitors? We will compare MarketAxess to related companies based on the strength of its dividends, profitability, analyst recommendations, risk, earnings, institutional ownership and valuation.

Volatility and Risk

MarketAxess has a beta of 0.8, meaning that its share price is 20% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, MarketAxess’ competitors have a beta of 0.81, meaning that their average share price is 19% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares MarketAxess and its competitors top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
MarketAxess	$846.27 million	$246.63 million	20.23
MarketAxess Competitors	$2.39 billion	$395.48 million	15.94

MarketAxess’ competitors have higher revenue and earnings than MarketAxess. MarketAxess is trading at a higher price-to-earnings ratio than its competitors, indicating that it is currently more expensive than other companies in its industry.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

99.0% of MarketAxess shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 30.5% of shares of all “Capital Markets” companies are owned by institutional investors. 0.7% of MarketAxess shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 13.0% of shares of all “Capital Markets” companies are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares MarketAxess and its competitors’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
MarketAxess	33.51%	23.15%	12.43%
MarketAxess Competitors	304.49%	79.05%	3.65%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings for MarketAxess and its competitors, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
MarketAxess	0	12	1	0	2.08
MarketAxess Competitors	5534	20095	22422	641	2.37

MarketAxess presently has a consensus price target of $159.44, indicating a potential downside of 3.54%. As a group, “Capital Markets” companies have a potential upside of 27.01%. Given MarketAxess’ competitors stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe MarketAxess has less favorable growth aspects than its competitors.

Dividends

MarketAxess pays an annual dividend of $3.12 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.9%. MarketAxess pays out 38.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. As a group, “Capital Markets” companies pay a dividend yield of 3.2% and pay out 30.0% of their earnings in the form of a dividend. MarketAxess has raised its dividend for 2 consecutive years. MarketAxess lags its competitors as a dividend stock, given its lower dividend yield and higher payout ratio.

Summary

MarketAxess competitors beat MarketAxess on 12 of the 15 factors compared.

About MarketAxess

MarketAxess Holdings Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates an electronic trading platform for institutional investor and broker-dealer companies worldwide. The company offers trading technology that provides liquidity access in U.S. high-grade bonds, U.S. high-yield bonds, emerging market debt, eurobonds, municipal bonds, U.S. government bonds, and other fixed-income securities; and executes bond trades between and among institutional investor and broker-dealer clients in an all-to-all anonymous trading environment for corporate bonds through its Open Trading protocols. It also provides trading-related products and services, including composite+ pricing and other market data products to assist clients with trading decisions; auto-execution and other execution services for clients requiring specialized workflow solutions; connectivity solutions that facilitate straight-through processing; and technology services to optimize trading environments. In addition, the company offers various pre-and post-trade services, such as trade matching, trade publication, regulatory transaction reporting, and market and reference data across a range of fixed-income and other products. MarketAxess Holdings Inc. was incorporated in 2000 and is headquartered in New York, New York.