Lighthouse Investment Partners LLC Takes Position in CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME)

Lighthouse Investment Partners LLC bought a new stake in shares of CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME) during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm bought 2,372 shares of the financial services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $551,000.

Several other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the business. Lake Street Advisors Group LLC lifted its holdings in CME Group by 108.7% during the 4th quarter. Lake Street Advisors Group LLC now owns 12,390 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $2,949,000 after purchasing an additional 6,453 shares during the last quarter. Meyer Handelman Co. bought a new position in CME Group during the 4th quarter valued at about $6,144,000. Unified Investment Management bought a new position in CME Group during the 4th quarter valued at about $503,000. Spire Wealth Management lifted its holdings in CME Group by 37.4% during the 4th quarter. Spire Wealth Management now owns 1,320 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $307,000 after purchasing an additional 359 shares during the last quarter. Finally, AEGON ASSET MANAGEMENT UK Plc lifted its holdings in CME Group by 19.3% during the 4th quarter. AEGON ASSET MANAGEMENT UK Plc now owns 326,098 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $75,730,000 after purchasing an additional 52,862 shares during the last quarter. 87.75% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages recently issued reports on CME. Oppenheimer lifted their price target on shares of CME Group from $269.00 to $279.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, April 11th. Raymond James raised shares of CME Group from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $287.00 price target for the company in a report on Monday, March 10th. Bank of America lifted their price target on shares of CME Group from $200.00 to $219.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 2nd. Piper Sandler boosted their target price on shares of CME Group from $275.00 to $283.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, April 8th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their target price on shares of CME Group from $223.00 to $211.00 and set an “underweight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, April 24th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have issued a hold rating, five have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $256.80.

CME Group Trading Down 0.8%

CME opened at $266.28 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10, a current ratio of 1.01 and a quick ratio of 1.02. The company has a market cap of $95.96 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.54, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 6.76 and a beta of 0.45. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $265.31 and a 200 day simple moving average of $246.39. CME Group Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $190.70 and a fifty-two week high of $286.48.

CME Group (NASDAQ:CME) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, April 23rd. The financial services provider reported $2.80 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.61 by $0.19. The business had revenue of $1.64 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.56 billion. CME Group had a net margin of 57.52% and a return on equity of 13.62%. CME Group’s revenue for the quarter was up 10.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $2.50 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that CME Group Inc. will post 10.49 earnings per share for the current year.

CME Group Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, June 25th. Investors of record on Monday, June 9th will be paid a dividend of $1.25 per share. This represents a $5.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.88%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, June 9th. CME Group’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 50.30%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, Director Howard J. Siegel sold 10,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, March 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $260.00, for a total transaction of $2,600,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 21,873 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,686,980. The trade was a 31.37% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, COO Suzanne Sprague sold 1,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, March 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $256.83, for a total transaction of $385,245.00. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer now owns 8,036 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,063,885.88. This represents a 15.73% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 23,134 shares of company stock valued at $6,087,434 over the last ninety days. Insiders own 0.30% of the company’s stock.

About CME Group

CME Group Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates contract markets for the trading of futures and options on futures contracts worldwide. It offers futures and options products based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, agricultural commodities, energy, and metals, as well as fixed income and foreign currency trading services.