MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) Receives $254.78 Consensus Target Price from Analysts

Shares of MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) have been assigned an average rating of “Hold” from the nine research firms that are covering the company, MarketBeat reports. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, six have given a hold recommendation and two have given a buy recommendation to the company. The average 1-year target price among brokers that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $254.78.

A number of research firms have recently weighed in on MKTX. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods dropped their price target on shares of MarketAxess from $251.00 to $225.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, February 7th. Barclays reduced their price target on MarketAxess from $256.00 to $225.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Friday, February 7th. The Goldman Sachs Group dropped their price objective on MarketAxess from $235.00 to $210.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, February 10th. UBS Group decreased their target price on shares of MarketAxess from $330.00 to $305.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, February 7th. Finally, Piper Sandler reduced their price objective on shares of MarketAxess from $265.00 to $240.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, January 7th.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On MarketAxess

Hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. Norges Bank acquired a new position in MarketAxess during the 4th quarter valued at $119,095,000. FMR LLC raised its position in shares of MarketAxess by 17.4% during the fourth quarter. FMR LLC now owns 2,300,536 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $520,013,000 after buying an additional 341,493 shares during the last quarter. Congress Asset Management Co. bought a new stake in shares of MarketAxess in the fourth quarter valued at about $71,103,000. Van ECK Associates Corp lifted its stake 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 valued at $452,246,000 after buying an additional 236,497 shares during the period. Finally, T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. grew its position in MarketAxess by 11.4% during the fourth 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 buying an additional 236,118 shares in the last quarter. 99.01% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

MarketAxess Stock Down 1.4 %

MKTX opened at $206.95 on Thursday. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $209.06 and a 200-day moving average of $241.88. The firm has a market capitalization of $7.80 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.47, a PEG ratio of 3.89 and a beta of 1.05. MarketAxess has a 12-month low of $186.84 and a 12-month high of $296.68.

MarketAxess (NASDAQ:MKTX) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, February 6th. The financial services provider reported $1.73 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.70 by $0.03. MarketAxess had a return on equity of 20.23% and a net margin of 33.56%. On average, analysts expect that MarketAxess will post 7.79 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

MarketAxess Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, March 5th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, February 19th were given a $0.76 dividend. This is an increase from MarketAxess’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.74. This represents a $3.04 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.47%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, February 19th. MarketAxess’s payout ratio is currently 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.