Wasatch Advisors LP Sells 15,790 Shares of MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX)

Wasatch Advisors LP decreased its stake in shares of MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) by 2.8% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 538,721 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after selling 15,790 shares during the period. Wasatch Advisors LP owned about 1.43% of MarketAxess worth $121,772,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Jump Financial LLC boosted its position in MarketAxess by 189.5% in the fourth quarter. Jump Financial LLC now owns 22,159 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $5,009,000 after purchasing an additional 14,506 shares during the last quarter. Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board bought a new position in shares of MarketAxess in the 4th quarter worth approximately $232,000. Guggenheim Capital LLC boosted its holdings in shares of MarketAxess by 3.7% in the fourth quarter. Guggenheim Capital LLC now owns 1,701 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $384,000 after buying an additional 61 shares during the last quarter. Canada Post Corp Registered Pension Plan bought a new stake in MarketAxess during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $81,000. Finally, Walleye Capital LLC increased its holdings in MarketAxess by 2,755.5% during the fourth quarter. Walleye Capital LLC now owns 102,427 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $23,153,000 after buying an additional 98,840 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 99.01% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts recently commented on the company. Barclays raised their target price on MarketAxess from $225.00 to $232.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Monday, April 7th. UBS Group decreased their price objective on MarketAxess from $305.00 to $295.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, April 7th. Piper Sandler cut their price objective on MarketAxess from $220.00 to $213.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, April 8th. William Blair initiated coverage on shares of MarketAxess in a research note on Friday, April 4th. They set an “outperform” rating on the stock. Finally, Bank of America upped their price target on shares of MarketAxess from $189.00 to $191.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 2nd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have assigned a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $252.11.

MarketAxess Price Performance

Shares of MarketAxess stock opened at $223.98 on Wednesday. MarketAxess Holdings Inc. has a 1 year low of $186.84 and a 1 year high of $296.68. The stock has a market cap of $8.44 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.81, a PEG ratio of 3.89 and a beta of 1.12. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $205.93 and its two-hundred day moving average is $234.85.

MarketAxess (NASDAQ:MKTX) last issued its quarterly earnings data 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, equities analysts expect that MarketAxess Holdings Inc. will post 7.79 earnings per share for the current year.

MarketAxess Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, March 5th. Investors of record on Wednesday, February 19th were paid a dividend of $0.76 per share. This is a boost from MarketAxess’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.74. This represents a $3.04 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.36%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, February 19th. MarketAxess’s dividend 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.