MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) Receives $183.10 Consensus Target Price from Analysts

MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) has earned an average rating of “Hold” from the eleven research firms that are covering the stock, MarketBeat.com reports. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, eight have issued a hold recommendation and two have issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average twelve-month price objective among brokerages that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $183.10.

MKTX has been the topic of a number of analyst reports. UBS Group reduced their price objective on MarketAxess from $225.00 to $215.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, May 11th. Argus downgraded MarketAxess from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 17th. Bank of America upgraded MarketAxess from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $170.00 price objective on the stock in a research report on Friday, June 12th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods initiated coverage on MarketAxess in a research report on Wednesday, April 8th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $195.00 price objective on the stock. Finally, Weiss Ratings downgraded MarketAxess from a “hold (c-)” rating to a “sell (d+)” rating in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th.

MarketAxess Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ MKTX opened at $112.51 on Wednesday. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $136.67 and its 200 day moving average price is $162.14. MarketAxess has a 1 year low of $108.75 and a 1 year high of $225.07. The company has a market capitalization of $4.00 billion, a PE ratio of 13.30, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.53 and a beta of 0.86. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.19, a quick ratio of 2.17 and a current ratio of 2.17.

MarketAxess (NASDAQ:MKTX) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 7th. The financial services provider reported $2.25 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.15 by $0.10. The company had revenue of $233.38 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $231.91 million. MarketAxess had a return on equity of 22.28% and a net margin of 35.53%.MarketAxess’s quarterly revenue was up 11.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company earned $1.87 earnings per share. On average, research analysts predict that MarketAxess will post 8 earnings per share for the current year.

MarketAxess Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, June 3rd. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, May 20th were given a $0.78 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, May 20th. This represents a $3.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.8%. MarketAxess’s payout ratio is currently 36.88%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Ancora Advisors LLC grew its stake in MarketAxess by 1.9% in the third quarter. Ancora Advisors LLC now owns 3,522 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $614,000 after purchasing an additional 67 shares in the last quarter. Orion Porfolio Solutions LLC lifted its stake in MarketAxess by 1.7% in the second quarter. Orion Porfolio Solutions LLC now owns 4,203 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $939,000 after acquiring an additional 69 shares during the last quarter. Krilogy Financial LLC lifted its stake in MarketAxess by 1.0% in the first quarter. Krilogy Financial LLC now owns 7,884 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $1,368,000 after acquiring an additional 77 shares during the last quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. lifted its stake in MarketAxess by 200.0% in the first quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 120 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $26,000 after acquiring an additional 80 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Alamar Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in MarketAxess by 0.5% in the third quarter. Alamar Capital Management LLC now owns 16,832 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $2,933,000 after acquiring an additional 80 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 99.01% of the company’s stock.

About MarketAxess

MarketAxess Holdings Inc operates a leading global electronic trading platform specializing in fixed-income securities and related products. The company’s network enables institutional investors and broker-dealers to trade corporate bonds, municipal securities, emerging markets debt, U.S. Treasuries and credit default swaps in an automated, multi-dealer environment. MarketAxess also offers portfolio trading, data analytics, best-execution tools and post-trade services to streamline workflows and enhance price discovery across its marketplace.

In addition to core voice-like trading protocols, MarketAxess provides Open Trading®, an anonymous, all-to-all trading protocol designed to improve liquidity and transaction efficiency.