MarketAxess (NASDAQ:MKTX) Trading Down 2.7% After Analyst Downgrade

MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX)’s stock price dropped 2.7% during mid-day trading on Wednesday after Piper Sandler lowered their price target on the stock from $220.00 to $213.00. Piper Sandler currently has a neutral rating on the stock. MarketAxess traded as low as $201.16 and last traded at $200.75. Approximately 1,069,525 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, an increase of 124% from the average daily volume of 477,336 shares. The stock had previously closed at $206.27.

MKTX has been the topic of several other research reports. Bank of America upped their price objective on MarketAxess from $189.00 to $191.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 2nd. UBS Group dropped their price target on MarketAxess from $305.00 to $295.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday. The Goldman Sachs Group decreased their price objective on shares of MarketAxess from $235.00 to $210.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Monday, February 10th. Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of MarketAxess from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating in a research note on Tuesday. Finally, William Blair started coverage on shares of MarketAxess in a research report on Friday, April 4th. They issued an “outperform” rating on the stock. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have assigned a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $252.11.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On MarketAxess

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of MarketAxess in the 4th quarter valued at $119,095,000. FMR LLC increased its position in MarketAxess by 17.4% during the fourth quarter. FMR LLC now owns 2,300,536 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $520,013,000 after buying an additional 341,493 shares during the last quarter. Congress Asset Management Co. bought a new position in MarketAxess during the fourth quarter valued at about $71,103,000. Van ECK Associates Corp lifted its position in shares of MarketAxess by 13.4% in the fourth quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 2,000,736 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $452,246,000 after buying an additional 236,497 shares during the last quarter. Finally, T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. boosted its stake in shares of MarketAxess by 11.4% during the 4th quarter. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. now owns 2,298,409 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $519,533,000 after acquiring an additional 236,118 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 99.01% of the company’s stock.

MarketAxess Trading Down 1.5 %

The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $205.06 and a 200 day moving average price of $235.86. The firm has a market cap of $7.66 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.95, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.89 and a beta of 1.12.

MarketAxess (NASDAQ:MKTX) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, February 6th. The financial services provider reported $1.73 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.70 by $0.03. MarketAxess had a return on equity of 20.23% and a net margin of 33.56%. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that MarketAxess Holdings Inc. will post 7.79 EPS for the current year.

MarketAxess Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, March 5th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, February 19th were issued a dividend of $0.76 per share. This represents a $3.04 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.50%. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, February 19th. This is a positive change from MarketAxess’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.74. MarketAxess’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 41.82%.

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.