Prudential Financial Inc. Cuts Stock Holdings in MSCI Inc $MSCI

Prudential Financial Inc. lessened its position in shares of MSCI Inc (NYSE:MSCI) by 59.6% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 79,809 shares of the technology company’s stock after selling 117,567 shares during the quarter. Prudential Financial Inc. owned about 0.10% of MSCI worth $46,029,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in MSCI. Gries Financial LLC boosted its holdings in MSCI by 1.3% during the 2nd quarter. Gries Financial LLC now owns 1,505 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $868,000 after acquiring an additional 20 shares during the period. Copperwynd Financial LLC increased its position in MSCI by 1.1% during the 2nd quarter. Copperwynd Financial LLC now owns 1,793 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,034,000 after buying an additional 20 shares in the last quarter. Empirical Finance LLC raised its position in shares of MSCI by 0.7% in the 2nd quarter. Empirical Finance LLC now owns 2,772 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,599,000 after purchasing an additional 20 shares during the last quarter. Harbour Investments Inc. lifted its position in MSCI by 8.5% during the 2nd quarter. Harbour Investments Inc. now owns 268 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $155,000 after acquiring an additional 21 shares during the period. Finally, Pinnacle Associates Ltd. boosted its position in MSCI by 2.1% in the first quarter. Pinnacle Associates Ltd. now owns 1,072 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $606,000 after buying an additional 22 shares during the last quarter. 89.97% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have recently commented on MSCI. Evercore ISI raised their price objective 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. Weiss Ratings restated a “buy (b-)” rating on shares of MSCI in a research report on Wednesday, November 19th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price target on shares of MSCI from $533.00 to $570.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 29th. UBS Group raised their target price on MSCI from $700.00 to $710.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 29th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price target on shares of MSCI from $655.00 to $680.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 29th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, ten have assigned a Buy rating and three have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, MSCI presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $655.90.

MSCI Stock Performance

MSCI stock opened at $556.85 on Tuesday. The company has a market capitalization of $41.84 billion, a P/E ratio of 35.29, a PEG ratio of 2.76 and a beta of 1.34. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $562.50 and a 200-day simple moving average of $563.54. MSCI Inc has a fifty-two week low of $486.73 and a fifty-two week high of $642.45.

MSCI (NYSE:MSCI) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, October 28th. The technology company reported $4.47 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $4.37 by $0.10. The business had revenue of $793.43 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $794.87 million. MSCI had a negative return on equity of 110.94% and a net margin of 40.03%.The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $3.86 earnings per share. As a group, analysts forecast that MSCI Inc will post 16.86 earnings per share for the current year.

MSCI Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 28th. Investors 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 payout ratio is currently 45.63%.

MSCI announced that its board 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 buy up to 7.1% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are typically an indication that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

MSCI Profile

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.