Symphony Financial Ltd. Co. Acquires Shares of 80,744 MSCI Inc $MSCI

Symphony Financial Ltd. Co. bought a new position in shares of MSCI Inc (NYSE:MSCI) during the second quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund bought 80,744 shares of the technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $46,568,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in MSCI by 5.9% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 9,376,852 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $5,302,610,000 after purchasing an additional 518,833 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of MSCI by 1.8% in the second quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,993,524 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,146,298,000 after buying an additional 34,335 shares during the last quarter. American Century Companies Inc. boosted its stake in shares of MSCI by 2.0% during the first quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 1,008,778 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $570,464,000 after buying an additional 19,846 shares during the period. Fiera Capital Corp grew its holdings in shares of MSCI by 2.2% during the second quarter. Fiera Capital Corp now owns 969,850 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $559,351,000 after buying an additional 20,682 shares during the last quarter. Finally, PineStone Asset Management Inc. grew its holdings in shares of MSCI by 11.9% during the second quarter. PineStone Asset Management Inc. now owns 890,123 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $513,370,000 after buying an additional 94,466 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 89.97% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms have weighed in on MSCI. Seaport Res Ptn raised MSCI to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 1st. Barclays increased their price target on MSCI from $650.00 to $660.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 29th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price objective on shares of MSCI from $533.00 to $570.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 29th. Evercore ISI raised their target price on shares of MSCI from $588.00 to $611.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 14th. Finally, Weiss Ratings reiterated a “buy (b-)” rating on shares of MSCI in a research note on Thursday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, ten have assigned a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $655.90.

MSCI Trading Down 1.5%

Shares of MSCI stock opened at $564.71 on Monday. The company has a 50-day moving average of $564.47 and a two-hundred day moving average of $563.24. MSCI Inc has a 12-month low of $486.73 and a 12-month high of $642.45. The stock has a market cap of $42.43 billion, a PE ratio of 35.79, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.76 and a beta of 1.34.

MSCI (NYSE:MSCI) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 28th. The technology company reported $4.47 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $4.37 by $0.10. MSCI had a negative return on equity of 110.94% and a net margin of 40.03%.The firm had revenue of $793.43 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $794.87 million. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $3.86 earnings per share. MSCI’s revenue was up 9.5% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that MSCI Inc will post 16.86 EPS for the current fiscal year.

MSCI Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 28th. Stockholders of record on Friday, November 14th will be given a $1.80 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Friday, November 14th. This represents a $7.20 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.3%. MSCI’s dividend payout ratio is currently 45.63%.

MSCI announced that its Board of Directors has approved a share repurchase plan on Tuesday, October 28th that authorizes the company to buyback $3.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the technology company to reacquire up to 7.1% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are generally an indication that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

About MSCI

MSCI Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides critical decision support tools and solutions for the investment community to manage investment processes worldwide. The Index segment provides indexes for use in various areas of the investment process, including indexed financial product, such as ETFs, mutual funds, annuities, futures, options, structured products, and over-the-counter derivatives; performance benchmarking; portfolio construction and rebalancing; and asset allocation, as well as licenses GICS and GICS Direct.