Citizens Financial Group Inc. RI Raises Stock Holdings in MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI)

Citizens Financial Group Inc. RI lifted its holdings in shares of MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI) by 75.1% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 1,900 shares of the technology company’s stock after purchasing an additional 815 shares during the quarter. Citizens Financial Group Inc. RI’s holdings in MSCI were worth $1,140,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the business. CWA Asset Management Group LLC lifted its position in MSCI by 4.2% in the 4th quarter. CWA Asset Management Group LLC now owns 418 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $251,000 after buying an additional 17 shares during the last quarter. Angeles Wealth Management LLC lifted its position in MSCI by 3.6% in the 4th quarter. Angeles Wealth Management LLC now owns 492 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $295,000 after buying an additional 17 shares during the last quarter. Bleakley Financial Group LLC lifted its position in MSCI by 0.9% in the 4th quarter. Bleakley Financial Group LLC now owns 2,044 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $1,227,000 after buying an additional 19 shares during the last quarter. Planning Capital Management Corp lifted its position in MSCI by 35.1% in the 3rd quarter. Planning Capital Management Corp now owns 77 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $45,000 after buying an additional 20 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Private Trust Co. NA lifted its position in MSCI by 35.1% in the 3rd quarter. Private Trust Co. NA now owns 77 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $45,000 after buying an additional 20 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 89.97% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts recently weighed in on the company. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded MSCI from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $617.00 to $723.00 in a research report on Wednesday, December 18th. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated an “outperform” rating and issued a $675.00 price objective on shares of MSCI in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price objective on MSCI from $700.00 to $680.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. Barclays lowered their price objective on MSCI from $700.00 to $675.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. Finally, Wolfe Research upgraded MSCI from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 12th. Three equities 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, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $649.23.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CEO Henry A. Fernandez purchased 5,300 shares of MSCI stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 24th. The shares were bought at an average cost of $574.51 per share, with a total value of $3,044,903.00. Following the completion of the purchase, the chief executive officer now directly 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 document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. 3.20% of the stock is owned by insiders.

MSCI Stock Up 0.5 %

Shares of MSCI stock opened at $544.29 on Thursday. The company has a market cap of $42.27 billion, a PE ratio of 38.71, a P/E/G ratio of 2.61 and a beta of 1.19. The business has a 50 day moving average of $586.66 and a 200 day moving average of $589.54. MSCI Inc. has a 52 week low of $439.95 and a 52 week high of $642.45.

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

MSCI Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 28th. Investors of record on Friday, February 14th were paid a $1.80 dividend. This represents a $7.20 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.32%. This is a boost from MSCI’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.60. The ex-dividend date was Friday, February 14th. MSCI’s dividend payout ratio is presently 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.