MarketAxess (NASDAQ:MKTX) Announces Earnings Results

MarketAxess (NASDAQ:MKTX) announced its earnings results on Thursday. The financial services provider reported $1.73 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.70 by $0.03, Zacks reports. MarketAxess had a net margin of 33.56% and a return on equity of 20.23%.

MarketAxess Price Performance

Shares of MKTX stock opened at $201.37 on Friday. MarketAxess has a 1 year low of $192.42 and a 1 year high of $296.68. The firm has a market capitalization of $7.59 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.70, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.08 and a beta of 1.02. The business has a fifty day moving average of $227.76 and a 200 day moving average of $246.99.

MarketAxess Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, March 5th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, February 19th will be paid a dividend of $0.76 per share. This is a positive change from MarketAxess’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.74. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, February 19th. This represents a $3.04 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.51%. MarketAxess’s payout ratio is presently 40.72%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities analysts recently issued reports on MKTX shares. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods lowered their price objective on MarketAxess from $251.00 to $225.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday. Barclays lowered their price target on MarketAxess from $256.00 to $225.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Friday. UBS Group reduced their price objective on MarketAxess from $330.00 to $305.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Friday. Piper Sandler lowered their target price on shares of MarketAxess from $265.00 to $240.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, January 7th. Finally, Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on shares of MarketAxess from $262.00 to $314.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 17th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $257.33.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, Chairman Richard M. Mcvey sold 10,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, November 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $267.67, for a total value of $2,676,700.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chairman now owns 562,029 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $150,438,302.43. This represents a 1.75 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, General Counsel Scott Pintoff sold 300 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $240.57, for a total value 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. The trade was a 3.49 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 30,300 shares of company stock valued at $8,183,871 over the last 90 days. Insiders own 2.66% of the company’s stock.

About MarketAxess

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.