CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME) Receives Average Recommendation of “Hold” from Brokerages

CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME) has earned a consensus recommendation of “Hold” from the sixteen brokerages that are covering the firm, Marketbeat reports. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell recommendation, seven have given a hold recommendation, five have issued a buy recommendation and one has issued a strong buy recommendation on the company. The average 12 month price target among brokers that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $256.80.

Several equities analysts have commented on CME shares. UBS Group upped their price objective on CME Group from $290.00 to $305.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday. Citigroup downgraded shares of CME Group from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and reduced their price target for the stock from $255.00 to $250.00 in a research note on Monday, January 6th. Piper Sandler boosted their price objective on shares of CME Group from $275.00 to $283.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, April 8th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised their target price on shares of CME Group from $265.00 to $273.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research report on Thursday, April 24th. Finally, Bank of America boosted their price target on CME Group from $200.00 to $219.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 2nd.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other CME Group news, insider Julie Winkler sold 11,592 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $249.17, for a total transaction of $2,888,378.64. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 21,885 shares in the company, valued at $5,453,085.45. This represents a 34.63 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, COO Suzanne Sprague sold 1,500 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, March 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $256.83, for a total value of $385,245.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now owns 8,036 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,063,885.88. The trade was a 15.73 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 29,076 shares of company stock worth $7,399,696. Company insiders own 0.30% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of CME Group

A number of institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of CME. Lake Street Advisors Group LLC lifted its stake in CME Group by 108.7% in the fourth quarter. Lake Street Advisors Group LLC now owns 12,390 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $2,949,000 after buying an additional 6,453 shares during the last quarter. Meyer Handelman Co. purchased a new position in CME Group during the fourth quarter worth about $6,144,000. Unified Investment Management purchased a new stake in shares of CME Group in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $503,000. Spire Wealth Management boosted its position in shares of CME Group by 37.4% during the 4th quarter. Spire Wealth Management now owns 1,320 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $307,000 after purchasing an additional 359 shares in the last quarter. Finally, AEGON ASSET MANAGEMENT UK Plc grew its stake in shares of CME Group by 19.3% during the 4th quarter. AEGON ASSET MANAGEMENT UK Plc now owns 326,098 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $75,730,000 after purchasing an additional 52,862 shares during the period. 87.75% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

CME Group Trading Up 0.6 %

Shares of NASDAQ CME opened at $267.92 on Thursday. CME Group has a 1-year low of $190.70 and a 1-year high of $273.42. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10, a current ratio of 1.01 and a quick ratio of 1.02. The business’s 50 day moving average is $259.12 and its two-hundred day moving average is $242.41. The stock has a market capitalization of $96.55 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.71, a PEG ratio of 6.76 and a beta of 0.43.

CME Group (NASDAQ:CME) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, April 23rd. The financial services provider reported $2.80 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.61 by $0.19. The firm had revenue of $1.64 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.56 billion. CME Group had a return on equity of 13.62% and a net margin of 57.52%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 10.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $2.50 EPS. As a group, research analysts expect that CME Group will post 10.49 EPS for the current year.

CME Group Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, March 26th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 7th were issued a $1.25 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Friday, March 7th. This is an increase from CME Group’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.15. This represents a $5.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.87%. CME Group’s payout ratio is presently 50.30%.

CME Group Company Profile

CME Group Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates contract markets for the trading of futures and options on futures contracts worldwide. It offers futures and options products based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, agricultural commodities, energy, and metals, as well as fixed income and foreign currency trading services.