Assenagon Asset Management S.A. Decreases Stake in MarketAxess Holdings Inc. $MKTX

Assenagon Asset Management S.A. cut its stake in shares of MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) by 92.5% during the third quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 12,984 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after selling 160,908 shares during the period. Assenagon Asset Management S.A.’s holdings in MarketAxess were worth $2,262,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Prudential Financial Inc. boosted its stake in shares of MarketAxess by 393.0% during the 2nd quarter. Prudential Financial Inc. now owns 98,271 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $21,948,000 after acquiring an additional 78,336 shares in the last quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB raised its holdings in MarketAxess by 16.4% during the second quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 19,734 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $4,334,000 after purchasing an additional 2,784 shares during the last quarter. Ethic Inc. boosted its position in MarketAxess by 190.6% during the second quarter. Ethic Inc. now owns 3,104 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $682,000 after purchasing an additional 2,036 shares in the last quarter. Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. purchased a new stake in MarketAxess during the first quarter worth $543,000. Finally, Integrated Wealth Concepts LLC acquired a new stake in MarketAxess in the first quarter valued at $635,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 99.01% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Argus cut their price target on MarketAxess from $212.00 to $205.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, December 17th. Morgan Stanley cut their target price on shares of MarketAxess from $209.00 to $204.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday. Piper Sandler set a $180.00 price target on shares of MarketAxess in a report on Tuesday, October 14th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised their price objective on shares of MarketAxess from $194.00 to $198.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Monday, November 10th. Finally, UBS Group cut their price objective on MarketAxess from $255.00 to $240.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, October 7th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, seven have given a Hold rating and two have given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $204.82.

MarketAxess Stock Up 1.1%

MKTX stock opened at $183.24 on Wednesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $6.81 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.16, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 6.56 and a beta of 1.00. MarketAxess Holdings Inc. has a 52-week low of $156.17 and a 52-week high of $232.84. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $169.21 and its 200-day simple moving average is $187.80.

MarketAxess (NASDAQ:MKTX) last released its earnings results on Friday, November 7th. The financial services provider reported $1.84 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.69 by $0.15. The firm had revenue of $208.82 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $212.59 million. MarketAxess had a return on equity of 20.20% and a net margin of 26.16%.The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $1.90 earnings per share. As a group, analysts anticipate that MarketAxess Holdings Inc. will post 7.79 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

MarketAxess Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, December 3rd. Investors of record on Wednesday, November 19th were issued a $0.76 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, November 19th. This represents a $3.04 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.7%. MarketAxess’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 51.70%.

About MarketAxess

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.