Freestone Grove Partners LP Makes New Investment in CME Group Inc. $CME

Freestone Grove Partners LP acquired a new stake in shares of CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME) in the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor acquired 162,979 shares of the financial services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $35,991,000.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in CME. BlackRock Inc. bought a new stake in shares of CME Group in the second quarter worth about $6,749,965,000. State Street Corp boosted its stake in CME Group by 0.4% during the fourth quarter. State Street Corp now owns 16,144,525 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $4,408,747,000 after buying an additional 56,725 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new position in CME Group during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $1,523,241,000. Bank of New York Mellon Corp increased its stake in CME Group by 2.8% in the 4th quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 4,924,475 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $1,344,776,000 after acquiring an additional 134,242 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Raymond James Financial Inc. increased its stake in CME Group by 5.4% in the 4th quarter. Raymond James Financial Inc. now owns 4,319,763 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $1,179,858,000 after acquiring an additional 222,890 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 87.75% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, Director William R. Shepard acquired 325 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, June 25th. The shares were acquired at an average price of $230.57 per share, for a total transaction of $74,935.25. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 260,442 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $60,050,111.94. The trade was a 0.12% increase in their position. The acquisition was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. 0.30% of the stock is owned by insiders.

CME Group Price Performance

NASDAQ:CME opened at $280.98 on Thursday. The firm has a market capitalization of $101.03 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.83, a PEG ratio of 3.30 and a beta of 0.23. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13, a current ratio of 1.02 and a quick ratio of 1.02. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $252.32 and a 200-day simple moving average of $279.24. CME Group Inc. has a 1 year low of $218.31 and a 1 year high of $329.16.

CME Group (NASDAQ:CME) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, July 22nd. The financial services provider reported $2.99 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.91 by $0.08. The firm had revenue of $1.71 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.68 billion. CME Group had a return on equity of 15.60% and a net margin of 63.30%.The company’s revenue for the quarter was up .8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $2.96 EPS. Equities analysts forecast that CME Group Inc. will post 12.27 EPS for the current year.

CME Group Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, September 25th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, September 9th will be paid a dividend of $1.30 per share. This represents a $5.20 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.9%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, September 9th. CME Group’s payout ratio is presently 44.11%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have recently issued reports on CME. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft cut CME Group from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and decreased their price objective for the stock from $286.00 to $270.00 in a report on Wednesday, August 19th. Erste Group Bank cut shares of CME Group from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, June 5th. UBS Group decreased their price target on shares of CME Group from $310.00 to $260.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, July 6th. Bank of America increased their price objective on shares of CME Group from $226.00 to $230.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 23rd. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on shares of CME Group from $249.00 to $250.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a report on Thursday, July 23rd. Nine analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have assigned a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $288.56.

About CME Group

CME Group Inc is a global markets company that operates some of the world’s largest and most liquid derivatives exchanges, including the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) and COMEX. The firm offers futures and options contracts across a broad range of asset classes — including interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, agricultural commodities and metals — and serves a diverse client base of institutional investors, commercial hedgers, brokers and retail participants.

The company’s core services include electronic trading on the CME Globex platform, central clearing through CME Clearing, and distribution of market data, indexes and analytics.