Virtu Financial LLC Increases Stock Holdings in MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX)

Virtu Financial LLC raised its stake in shares of MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) by 22.1% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 3,985 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after buying an additional 722 shares during the quarter. Virtu Financial LLC’s holdings in MarketAxess were worth $901,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Van ECK Associates Corp lifted its stake in shares of MarketAxess by 13.4% in the 4th quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 2,000,736 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $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 valued at $501,907,000 after buying an additional 291,134 shares during the period. Primecap Management Co. CA boosted its holdings in shares of MarketAxess by 2.3% during the 4th quarter. Primecap Management Co. CA now owns 1,369,102 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $309,472,000 after buying an additional 30,180 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its position in shares of MarketAxess by 14.9% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,076,877 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $275,122,000 after buying an additional 139,949 shares during the period. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp increased its stake in shares of MarketAxess by 2.6% in the 4th quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 440,934 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $99,669,000 after acquiring an additional 11,291 shares in the last quarter. 99.01% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts recently commented on the stock. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods dropped their price objective on shares of MarketAxess from $251.00 to $225.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, February 7th. Barclays dropped their price target on MarketAxess from $256.00 to $225.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, February 7th. The Goldman Sachs Group reduced their price objective on MarketAxess from $235.00 to $210.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, February 10th. Piper Sandler dropped their target price on MarketAxess from $265.00 to $240.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, January 7th. Finally, UBS Group cut their target price on MarketAxess from $330.00 to $305.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, February 7th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $254.78.

MarketAxess Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:MKTX opened at $211.78 on Tuesday. MarketAxess Holdings Inc. has a 1 year low of $186.84 and a 1 year high of $296.68. The company has a market cap of $7.98 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.13, a PEG ratio of 3.89 and a beta of 1.05. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $207.82 and its 200-day moving average price is $240.10.

MarketAxess (NASDAQ:MKTX) last posted its earnings results 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 net margin of 33.56% and a return on equity of 20.23%. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that MarketAxess Holdings Inc. will post 7.79 earnings per share for the current year.

MarketAxess Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, March 5th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, February 19th were given a $0.76 dividend. This represents a $3.04 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.44%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, February 19th. This is an increase from MarketAxess’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.74. MarketAxess’s payout ratio is 41.82%.

MarketAxess 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.