Parnassus Investments LLC Sells 498 Shares of MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI)

Parnassus Investments LLC cut its stake in MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI) by 1.4% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 35,504 shares of the technology company’s stock after selling 498 shares during the period. Parnassus Investments LLC’s holdings in MSCI were worth $21,303,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Prime Capital Investment Advisors LLC raised its stake in shares of MSCI by 30.0% in the third quarter. Prime Capital Investment Advisors LLC now owns 564 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $329,000 after acquiring an additional 130 shares during the last quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. raised its stake in shares of MSCI by 30.9% in the fourth quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 174,982 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $104,991,000 after acquiring an additional 41,346 shares during the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised its stake in shares of MSCI by 4.5% in the third quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 536,211 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $312,574,000 after acquiring an additional 23,050 shares during the last quarter. Mizuho Securities USA LLC raised its stake in shares of MSCI by 339.6% in the third quarter. Mizuho Securities USA LLC now owns 26,834 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $15,642,000 after acquiring an additional 20,730 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Integrated Wealth Concepts LLC raised its stake in shares of MSCI by 176.2% during the third quarter. Integrated Wealth Concepts LLC now owns 1,580 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $921,000 after buying an additional 1,008 shares during the last quarter. 89.97% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages recently weighed in on MSCI. Barclays cut their price objective on shares of MSCI from $700.00 to $675.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, January 30th. Royal Bank of Canada restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $675.00 price objective on shares of MSCI in a report on Thursday, January 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their price objective on shares of MSCI from $700.00 to $680.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, January 30th. Morgan Stanley increased their price objective on shares of MSCI from $662.00 to $695.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, December 12th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of MSCI from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price objective for the company from $617.00 to $723.00 in a report on Wednesday, December 18th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eleven have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, MSCI presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $649.23.

Insider Transactions at MSCI

In other MSCI news, CEO Henry A. Fernandez bought 5,300 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 24th. The stock was acquired at an average price of $574.51 per share, with a total value of $3,044,903.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 1,269,951 shares in the company, valued at approximately $729,599,549.01. This trade represents a 0.42 % increase in their ownership of the stock. The acquisition was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. 3.20% of the stock is owned by insiders.

MSCI Stock Performance

MSCI opened at $541.30 on Friday. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $585.55 and its two-hundred day moving average is $589.20. MSCI Inc. has a twelve month low of $439.95 and a twelve month high of $642.45. The firm has a market cap of $42.03 billion, a PE ratio of 38.50, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.61 and a beta of 1.19.

MSCI (NYSE:MSCI) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 29th. The technology company reported $4.18 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.96 by $0.22. MSCI had a net margin of 38.83% and a negative return on equity of 156.08%. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $3.68 earnings per share. Equities analysts forecast that MSCI Inc. will post 16.86 EPS for the current fiscal year.

MSCI Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 28th. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 14th were given a dividend of $1.80 per share. This is an increase from MSCI’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.60. The ex-dividend date was Friday, February 14th. This represents a $7.20 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.33%. MSCI’s dividend payout ratio is currently 51.21%.

About MSCI

MSCI Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides critical decision support tools and solutions for the investment community to manage investment processes worldwide. The Index segment provides indexes for use in various areas of the investment process, including indexed financial product, such as ETFs, mutual funds, annuities, futures, options, structured products, and over-the-counter derivatives; performance benchmarking; portfolio construction and rebalancing; and asset allocation, as well as licenses GICS and GICS Direct.