Mach 1 Financial Group LLC Buys New Position in Morgan Stanley $MS

Mach 1 Financial Group LLC bought a new stake in Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor bought 17,493 shares of the financial services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $3,106,000.

Other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Farther Finance Advisors LLC lifted its stake in shares of Morgan Stanley by 40.1% in the 4th quarter. Farther Finance Advisors LLC now owns 29,744 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $5,281,000 after purchasing an additional 8,512 shares during the period. Bahl & Gaynor Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Morgan Stanley by 103.1% in the 3rd quarter. Bahl & Gaynor Inc. now owns 12,700 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $2,019,000 after purchasing an additional 6,448 shares during the period. Donaldson Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of Morgan Stanley by 2.0% in the 3rd quarter. Donaldson Capital Management LLC now owns 467,246 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $74,273,000 after purchasing an additional 9,056 shares during the period. ABN Amro Investment Solutions lifted its stake in shares of Morgan Stanley by 52.6% in the 3rd quarter. ABN Amro Investment Solutions now owns 113,504 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $18,043,000 after purchasing an additional 39,104 shares during the period. Finally, A4 Wealth Advisors LLC acquired a new position in shares of Morgan Stanley in the 3rd quarter valued at about $855,000. 84.19% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

MS has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Royal Bank Of Canada reissued a “sector perform” rating and issued a $207.00 price objective on shares of Morgan Stanley in a research note on Thursday, April 16th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on Morgan Stanley from $173.00 to $179.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 10th. Citigroup boosted their price objective on Morgan Stanley from $170.00 to $194.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, May 8th. Zacks Research raised Morgan Stanley from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, April 28th. Finally, CICC Research boosted their target price on Morgan Stanley from $175.00 to $200.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twelve have issued a Buy rating and eleven have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $205.95.

Morgan Stanley Stock Performance

Shares of Morgan Stanley stock opened at $197.70 on Thursday. Morgan Stanley has a one year low of $123.88 and a one year high of $198.07. The firm has a market capitalization of $311.83 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.91, a PEG ratio of 1.42 and a beta of 1.22. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $177.48 and a 200 day simple moving average of $175.58. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.52, a current ratio of 0.77 and a quick ratio of 0.77.

Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, April 15th. The financial services provider reported $3.43 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.02 by $0.41. Morgan Stanley had a return on equity of 17.70% and a net margin of 14.65%.The business had revenue of $20.58 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $19.23 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $2.60 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 16.0% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts anticipate that Morgan Stanley will post 11.85 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Morgan Stanley Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 30th were issued a dividend of $1.00 per share. This represents a $4.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.0%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, April 30th. Morgan Stanley’s payout ratio is currently 36.23%.

Trending Headlines about Morgan Stanley

Here are the key news stories impacting Morgan Stanley this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Morgan Stanley is reportedly one of the lead banks working with OpenAI on a confidential IPO filing, positioning the firm to benefit from underwriting, advisory, and related capital-markets fees if the deal moves forward. OpenAI readies IPO filing to list as soon as September
• Positive Sentiment: Separate coverage highlighted Morgan Stanley’s involvement in AI-related dealmaking and broader technology M&A, reinforcing the view that the bank is well positioned to capture activity tied to the AI investment cycle. Morgan Stanley Sees AI Deals Spreading Across Chips, Power, and Data Centers
• Neutral Sentiment: Other headlines were mostly commentary or positioning updates, including notes on Morgan Stanley’s outlook for Fed rate cuts and its tighter device/security policy for China travel, which are unlikely to move the stock on their own.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Morgan Stanley news, insider Andrew M. Saperstein sold 51,668 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, April 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $188.59, for a total transaction of $9,744,068.12. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 282,142 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $53,209,159.78. The trade was a 15.48% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, insider Daniel A. Simkowitz sold 14,690 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, April 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $189.24, for a total value of $2,779,935.60. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 365,802 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $69,224,370.48. This represents a 3.86% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 77,476 shares of company stock valued at $14,644,762. Corporate insiders own 0.17% of the company’s stock.

About Morgan Stanley

Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) is a global financial services firm headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1935 by Henry S. Morgan and Harold Stanley, the company provides a broad range of investment banking, securities, wealth management and investment management services to corporations, governments, institutions and individual investors. Leadership has been guided by a senior executive team and board of directors; James P. Gorman has served as the company’s chief executive and chairman in recent years.

The firm’s primary business activities are organized around three principal businesses: Institutional Securities, Wealth Management and Investment Management.