Fjarde AP Fonden Fourth Swedish National Pension Fund Raises Stock Holdings in MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX)

Fjarde AP Fonden Fourth Swedish National Pension Fund raised its position in shares of MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) by 0.9% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 11,220 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 100 shares during the quarter. Fjarde AP Fonden Fourth Swedish National Pension Fund’s holdings in MarketAxess were worth $2,536,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other large investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Van ECK Associates Corp grew its stake in shares of 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 during the period. FMR LLC grew its stake in shares of MarketAxess by 17.5% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 1,959,043 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $501,907,000 after purchasing an additional 291,134 shares during the period. Primecap Management Co. CA grew its stake in shares of MarketAxess by 0.6% during the 3rd quarter. Primecap Management Co. CA now owns 1,338,922 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $343,032,000 after purchasing an additional 8,042 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in shares of MarketAxess by 14.9% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,076,877 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $275,122,000 after purchasing an additional 139,949 shares during the period. Finally, Stephens Investment Management Group LLC grew its stake in shares of MarketAxess by 42.1% during the 3rd quarter. Stephens Investment Management Group LLC now owns 393,877 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $100,911,000 after purchasing an additional 116,607 shares during the period. 99.01% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

MKTX has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. UBS Group cut their price target on MarketAxess from $330.00 to $305.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, February 7th. Barclays cut their price objective on MarketAxess from $256.00 to $225.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, February 7th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods cut their price objective on MarketAxess from $251.00 to $225.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, February 7th. Piper Sandler cut their price objective on MarketAxess from $265.00 to $240.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, January 7th. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft boosted their price objective on MarketAxess from $258.00 to $264.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, November 11th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $254.78.

Insider Transactions at MarketAxess

In other news, General Counsel Scott Pintoff sold 300 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $240.57, for a total transaction of $72,171.00. Following the sale, the general counsel now directly owns 8,302 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,997,212.14. This represents a 3.49 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Insiders own 2.66% of the company’s stock.

MarketAxess Price Performance

MKTX stock opened at $191.81 on Thursday. MarketAxess Holdings Inc. has a 1-year low of $186.84 and a 1-year high of $296.68. The company has a market capitalization of $7.23 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.38, a PEG ratio of 3.89 and a beta of 1.02. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $214.02 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $244.00.

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%. Sell-side analysts anticipate that MarketAxess Holdings Inc. will post 7.79 EPS for the current fiscal year.

MarketAxess Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, March 5th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, February 19th will be issued a dividend of $0.76 per share. This represents a $3.04 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.58%. This is a boost from MarketAxess’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.74. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, February 19th. MarketAxess’s dividend payout ratio is 41.82%.

MarketAxess Company 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.