Cooke & Bieler LP Acquires New Shares in MarketAxess Holdings Inc. $MKTX

Cooke & Bieler LP bought a new position in shares of MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm bought 104,100 shares of the financial services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $18,868,000.

Other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Primecap Management Co. CA raised its stake in shares of MarketAxess by 66.6% during the 3rd quarter. Primecap Management Co. CA now owns 2,230,595 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $388,681,000 after buying an additional 891,303 shares during the last quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp raised its position in 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 acquiring an additional 119,036 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp lifted its holdings in shares of MarketAxess by 4.6% in the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 1,532,696 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $342,312,000 after purchasing an additional 67,290 shares in the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC increased its stake in shares of MarketAxess by 25.4% during the 3rd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 951,088 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $165,727,000 after purchasing an additional 192,626 shares in the last quarter. Finally, North Reef Capital Management LP raised its position in shares of MarketAxess by 117.0% during the 3rd quarter. North Reef Capital Management LP now owns 911,358 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $158,804,000 after purchasing an additional 491,358 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 99.01% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

MKTX has been the subject of several recent research reports. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods began coverage on MarketAxess in a research report on Wednesday, April 8th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $195.00 price target for the company. UBS Group cut their target price on shares of MarketAxess from $225.00 to $215.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, May 11th. Weiss Ratings cut shares of MarketAxess from a “hold (c-)” rating to a “sell (d+)” rating in a research note on Wednesday, May 6th. Barclays cut their price objective on shares of MarketAxess from $189.00 to $170.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, May 11th. Finally, Argus lowered shares of MarketAxess from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 17th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, MarketAxess has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $190.88.

MarketAxess Stock Performance

Shares of MKTX stock opened at $137.13 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.19, a quick ratio of 2.17 and a current ratio of 2.17. The firm has a market capitalization of $4.87 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.21, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.64 and a beta of 0.92. MarketAxess Holdings Inc. has a one year low of $135.00 and a one year high of $228.16. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $161.18 and a 200 day moving average price of $169.79.

MarketAxess (NASDAQ:MKTX) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 7th. The financial services provider reported $2.25 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.15 by $0.10. The company had revenue of $233.38 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $231.91 million. MarketAxess had a net margin of 35.53% and a return on equity of 22.28%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 11.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $1.87 EPS. Sell-side analysts anticipate that MarketAxess Holdings Inc. will post 8.04 EPS for the current year.

MarketAxess Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, June 3rd. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, May 20th will be given a dividend of $0.78 per share. This represents a $3.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.3%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, May 20th. MarketAxess’s payout ratio is 36.88%.

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.