Fairtree Asset Management Pty Ltd Invests $1.01 Million in CME Group Inc. $CME

Fairtree Asset Management Pty Ltd acquired a new stake in CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME) in the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm acquired 4,581 shares of the financial services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $1,012,000.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of CME. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in CME Group by 1.7% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 35,895,583 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $9,802,366,000 after purchasing an additional 588,509 shares in the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. bought a new stake in shares of CME Group during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $6,749,965,000. State Street Corp raised its stake in shares of CME Group by 0.4% during the 4th quarter. State Street Corp now owns 16,144,525 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $4,408,747,000 after purchasing an additional 56,725 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of CME Group in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $1,523,241,000. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp boosted its holdings in shares of CME Group by 2.8% in the 4th quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 4,924,475 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $1,344,776,000 after buying an additional 134,242 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 87.75% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts recently weighed in on CME shares. Weiss Ratings downgraded shares of CME Group from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 11th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price target on shares of CME Group from $249.00 to $250.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 23rd. Raymond James Financial reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $320.00 price objective on shares of CME Group in a research report on Thursday, July 2nd. Bank of America boosted their price objective on shares of CME Group from $226.00 to $230.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 23rd. Finally, Rothschild & Co Redburn raised shares of CME Group from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their target price for the company from $316.00 to $323.00 in a report on Thursday, June 11th. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have issued a Hold rating and three have issued a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $288.56.

CME Group Trading Up 1.5%

Shares of CME Group stock opened at $270.87 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13, a current ratio of 1.02 and a quick ratio of 1.02. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $251.06 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $279.68. CME Group Inc. has a 1 year low of $218.31 and a 1 year high of $329.16. The company has a market capitalization of $97.40 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.97, a P/E/G ratio of 3.11 and a beta of 0.23.

CME Group (NASDAQ:CME) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 22nd. The financial services provider reported $2.99 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.91 by $0.08. The firm had revenue of $1.71 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.68 billion. CME Group had a net margin of 63.30% and a return on equity of 15.60%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up .8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $2.96 earnings per share. Research analysts forecast that CME Group Inc. will post 12.27 EPS for the current year.

CME Group Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, September 25th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, September 9th will be issued a $1.30 dividend. This represents a $5.20 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.9%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, September 9th. CME Group’s dividend payout ratio is currently 44.11%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, Director William R. Shepard acquired 325 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, June 25th. The stock was purchased at an average cost of $230.57 per share, for a total transaction of $74,935.25. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 260,442 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $60,050,111.94. The trade was a 0.12% increase in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. 0.30% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

About CME Group

CME Group Inc is a global markets company that operates some of the world’s largest and most liquid derivatives exchanges, including the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) and COMEX. The firm offers futures and options contracts across a broad range of asset classes — including interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, agricultural commodities and metals — and serves a diverse client base of institutional investors, commercial hedgers, brokers and retail participants.

The company’s core services include electronic trading on the CME Globex platform, central clearing through CME Clearing, and distribution of market data, indexes and analytics.