MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI) Declares $1.60 Quarterly Dividend

MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI) announced a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, April 23rd, RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Friday, May 17th will be given a dividend of 1.60 per share by the technology company on Friday, May 31st. This represents a $6.40 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.43%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, May 16th.

MSCI has raised its dividend payment by an average of 23.7% per year over the last three years and has increased its dividend annually for the last 10 consecutive years. MSCI has a dividend payout ratio of 37.6% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect MSCI to earn $16.95 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $6.40 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 37.8%.

MSCI Trading Down 13.4 %

MSCI stock opened at $446.09 on Wednesday. The company’s 50 day moving average is $547.91 and its 200 day moving average is $539.08. The stock has a market cap of $35.34 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.98, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.58 and a beta of 1.06. MSCI has a 1-year low of $439.95 and a 1-year high of $617.39.

MSCI (NYSE:MSCI) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, April 23rd. The technology company reported $3.52 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.46 by $0.06. The company had revenue of $680.00 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $685.47 million. MSCI had a net margin of 45.42% and a negative return on equity of 111.17%. MSCI’s revenue for the quarter was up 14.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $3.14 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that MSCI will post 14.84 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research analysts have commented on MSCI shares. Wolfe Research started coverage on shares of MSCI in a research report on Tuesday, March 26th. They set a “peer perform” rating on the stock. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price target on shares of MSCI from $615.00 to $660.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 31st. Barclays increased their price target on shares of MSCI from $600.00 to $700.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 31st. Redburn Atlantic cut shares of MSCI from a “neutral” rating to a “sell” rating and reduced their price target for the company from $620.00 to $470.00 in a research report on Tuesday, February 20th. Finally, StockNews.com cut shares of MSCI from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 20th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have given a hold rating and eight have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, MSCI currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $575.27.

MSCI Company Profile

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.