Louisiana State Employees Retirement System Takes $2.72 Million Position in MarketAxess Holdings Inc. $MKTX

Louisiana State Employees Retirement System purchased a new stake in shares of MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) during the 1st quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor purchased 16,500 shares of the financial services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $2,722,000.

Several other large investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in MKTX. Primecap Management Co. CA boosted its holdings in MarketAxess by 42.4% in the fourth quarter. Primecap Management Co. CA now owns 3,175,425 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $575,546,000 after purchasing an additional 944,830 shares during the period. AQR Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of MarketAxess by 169.0% during the fourth quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 2,558,097 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $463,655,000 after purchasing an additional 1,607,009 shares during the period. Van ECK Associates Corp raised its holdings in shares of MarketAxess by 6.5% during the third quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 1,948,633 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $339,549,000 after purchasing an additional 119,036 shares during the period. North Reef Capital Management LP lifted its position in shares of MarketAxess by 76.6% in the 4th quarter. North Reef Capital Management LP now owns 1,609,330 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $291,691,000 after buying an additional 697,972 shares during the last quarter. Finally, State Street Corp boosted its holdings in shares of MarketAxess by 4.6% in the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 1,532,696 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $342,312,000 after buying an additional 67,290 shares during the period. 99.01% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

MarketAxess Stock Down 0.0%

MarketAxess stock opened at $112.51 on Monday. 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 Holdings Inc. has a one year low of $108.75 and a one year high of $225.07. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $136.67 and a 200-day simple moving average of $162.12. The firm has a market capitalization of $4.00 billion, a P/E ratio of 13.30, a P/E/G ratio of 3.64 and a beta of 0.86.

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

MarketAxess Announces Dividend

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

Analysts Set New Price Targets

MKTX has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Argus downgraded shares of MarketAxess from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 17th. Weiss Ratings cut shares of MarketAxess from a “hold (c-)” rating to a “sell (d+)” rating in a report on Wednesday, May 6th. Rothschild & Co Redburn restated a “neutral” rating and issued a $134.00 target price (down from $189.00) on shares of MarketAxess in a research note on Thursday, June 11th. Bank of America raised MarketAxess from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $170.00 target price for the company in a report on Friday, June 12th. Finally, Barclays cut their price target on MarketAxess from $189.00 to $170.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, May 11th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, eight have assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $183.10.

MarketAxess Company Profile

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.