Merit Financial Group LLC Invests $353,000 in MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX)

Merit Financial Group LLC purchased a new position in shares of MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) during the first quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund purchased 1,630 shares of the financial services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $353,000.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in MKTX. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. lifted its position in MarketAxess by 37.4% in the 4th quarter. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. now owns 4,711 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $1,076,000 after acquiring an additional 1,282 shares in the last quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. lifted its position in MarketAxess by 1.5% during the 4th quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. now owns 76,223 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $17,229,000 after buying an additional 1,114 shares in the last quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management Company Ltd lifted its position in MarketAxess by 3.7% during the 4th quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management Company Ltd now owns 3,637 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $822,000 after buying an additional 130 shares in the last quarter. Empowered Funds LLC acquired a new position in shares of MarketAxess during the 4th quarter worth about $358,000. Finally, Van ECK Associates Corp increased its stake in shares of MarketAxess by 13.4% during the 4th quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 2,000,736 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $452,246,000 after purchasing an additional 236,497 shares during the last quarter. 99.01% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms have recently weighed in on MKTX. Bank of America boosted their price objective on shares of MarketAxess from $189.00 to $191.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 2nd. UBS Group lowered their price objective on shares of MarketAxess from $305.00 to $295.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, April 7th. William Blair began coverage on shares of MarketAxess in a research note on Friday, April 4th. They set an “outperform” rating on the stock. Piper Sandler lowered their price objective on shares of MarketAxess from $213.00 to $202.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, May 8th. Finally, Morgan Stanley upped their price target on shares of MarketAxess from $263.00 to $283.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 8th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $241.78.

MarketAxess Stock Up 0.3%

Shares of NASDAQ:MKTX opened at $225.02 on Thursday. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $219.03 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $219.17. MarketAxess Holdings Inc. has a 12-month low of $186.84 and a 12-month high of $296.68. The firm has a market cap of $8.44 billion, a PE ratio of 30.95, a PEG ratio of 3.89 and a beta of 0.84.

MarketAxess (NASDAQ:MKTX) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 7th. The financial services provider reported $1.87 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.82 by $0.05. MarketAxess had a net margin of 33.56% and a return on equity of 20.23%. The company had revenue of $208.58 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $211.81 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $1.92 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down .8% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts expect that MarketAxess Holdings Inc. will post 7.79 EPS for the current year.

MarketAxess Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, June 4th. Investors of record on Wednesday, May 21st were paid a $0.76 dividend. This represents a $3.04 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.35%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, May 21st. MarketAxess’s payout ratio is 52.87%.

MarketAxess Profile

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.