Raymond James Financial Inc. Makes New Investment in MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX)

Raymond James Financial Inc. acquired a new stake in MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund acquired 203,854 shares of the financial services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $46,079,000. Raymond James Financial Inc. owned approximately 0.54% of MarketAxess as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in MarketAxess by 2.1% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 4,434,946 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $1,002,475,000 after acquiring an additional 90,805 shares during the period. FMR LLC grew its position in MarketAxess by 17.4% in the 4th quarter. FMR LLC now owns 2,300,536 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $520,013,000 after purchasing an additional 341,493 shares during the period. Van ECK Associates Corp increased its stake in MarketAxess by 13.4% during the 4th quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 2,000,736 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $452,246,000 after purchasing an additional 236,497 shares in the last quarter. Primecap Management Co. CA raised its holdings in MarketAxess by 2.3% during the fourth quarter. Primecap Management Co. CA now owns 1,369,102 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $309,472,000 after buying an additional 30,180 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of MarketAxess by 3.4% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,113,308 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $251,106,000 after buying an additional 36,431 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 99.01% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms recently weighed in on MKTX. The Goldman Sachs Group lowered their target price on shares of MarketAxess from $235.00 to $210.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, February 10th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods cut their target price on MarketAxess from $251.00 to $225.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, February 7th. Piper Sandler lowered their price target on MarketAxess from $220.00 to $213.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, April 8th. Bank of America lifted their price objective on shares of MarketAxess from $189.00 to $191.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 2nd. Finally, UBS Group cut their price target on shares of MarketAxess from $305.00 to $295.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, April 7th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have given a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $252.11.

MarketAxess Trading Up 0.3 %

MarketAxess stock opened at $222.42 on Tuesday. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $205.48 and its 200 day simple moving average is $234.93. MarketAxess Holdings Inc. has a 12 month low of $186.84 and a 12 month high of $296.68. The company has a market cap of $8.38 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.59, a PEG ratio of 3.89 and a beta of 1.12.

MarketAxess (NASDAQ:MKTX) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 6th. The financial services provider reported $1.73 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.70 by $0.03. MarketAxess had a return on equity of 20.23% and a net margin of 33.56%. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that MarketAxess Holdings Inc. 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. Investors of record on Wednesday, February 19th were paid a dividend of $0.76 per share. This is a boost from MarketAxess’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.74. This represents a $3.04 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.37%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, February 19th. MarketAxess’s dividend payout ratio is presently 41.82%.

MarketAxess Profile

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.