Magnetar Financial LLC Acquires 15,389 Shares of MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX)

Magnetar Financial LLC grew its holdings in MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) by 708.2% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 17,562 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after buying an additional 15,389 shares during the period. Magnetar Financial LLC’s holdings in MarketAxess were worth $3,970,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of MKTX. Van ECK Associates Corp lifted its position in MarketAxess by 13.4% during the fourth quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 2,000,736 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $452,246,000 after purchasing an additional 236,497 shares during the period. FMR LLC lifted its position in MarketAxess by 17.5% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 1,959,043 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $501,907,000 after purchasing an additional 291,134 shares during the period. Primecap Management Co. CA lifted its position in MarketAxess by 2.3% during the fourth quarter. Primecap Management Co. CA now owns 1,369,102 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $309,472,000 after purchasing an additional 30,180 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position in MarketAxess by 14.9% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,076,877 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $275,122,000 after purchasing an additional 139,949 shares during the period. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp lifted its position in MarketAxess by 2.6% during the fourth quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 440,934 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $99,669,000 after purchasing an additional 11,291 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 99.01% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts recently weighed in on MKTX shares. Barclays cut their price objective on shares of MarketAxess from $256.00 to $225.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, February 7th. Piper Sandler lowered their target price on MarketAxess from $265.00 to $240.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, January 7th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods lowered their target price 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. The Goldman Sachs Group lowered their target price on MarketAxess from $235.00 to $210.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, February 10th. Finally, UBS Group lowered their target price on MarketAxess from $330.00 to $305.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, February 7th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $254.78.

MarketAxess Price Performance

MarketAxess stock opened at $217.82 on Friday. The business has a 50 day moving average of $207.90 and a 200-day moving average of $240.62. 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 $8.21 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.96, a P/E/G ratio of 3.89 and a beta of 1.05.

MarketAxess (NASDAQ:MKTX) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 6th. The financial services provider reported $1.73 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating 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%. Equities analysts anticipate that MarketAxess Holdings Inc. will post 7.79 EPS for the current year.

MarketAxess Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, March 5th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, February 19th were given a dividend of $0.76 per share. This represents a $3.04 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.40%. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, February 19th. This is an increase from MarketAxess’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.74. MarketAxess’s dividend payout ratio is currently 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.