AE Wealth Management LLC Acquires 620 Shares of MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI)

AE Wealth Management LLC grew its holdings in MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI) by 21.9% during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 3,456 shares of the technology company’s stock after purchasing an additional 620 shares during the period. AE Wealth Management LLC’s holdings in MSCI were worth $1,665,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the business. Principal Financial Group Inc. grew its stake in MSCI by 74.9% in the 2nd quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 1,456,194 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $701,522,000 after acquiring an additional 623,712 shares in the last quarter. PineStone Asset Management Inc. grew its stake in MSCI by 129.4% in the second quarter. PineStone Asset Management Inc. now owns 730,986 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $352,153,000 after purchasing an additional 412,389 shares in the last quarter. Public Employees Retirement Association of Colorado increased its holdings in MSCI by 3,600.0% during the 4th quarter. Public Employees Retirement Association of Colorado now owns 253,636 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $143,469,000 after purchasing an additional 246,781 shares during the period. Findlay Park Partners LLP bought a new stake in MSCI during the 1st quarter valued at $114,836,000. Finally, Manning & Napier Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of MSCI in the 2nd quarter worth $91,748,000. 89.97% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have recently commented on MSCI. Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on MSCI from $615.00 to $640.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 24th. Wells Fargo & Company raised shares of MSCI to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 13th. Argus lifted their price objective on shares of MSCI from $520.00 to $600.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, July 26th. UBS Group boosted their price objective on shares of MSCI from $575.00 to $585.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 9th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group increased their target price on MSCI from $526.00 to $590.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 24th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $591.00.

MSCI Stock Up 1.6 %

Shares of NYSE:MSCI opened at $560.16 on Tuesday. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $550.16 and a 200-day moving average price of $521.56. The stock has a market cap of $44.38 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 38.24, a PEG ratio of 3.06 and a beta of 1.11. MSCI Inc. has a 52-week low of $439.95 and a 52-week high of $617.39.

MSCI (NYSE:MSCI) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 23rd. The technology company reported $3.64 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.55 by $0.09. The business had revenue of $707.90 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $696.41 million. MSCI had a net margin of 43.86% and a negative return on equity of 143.09%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 14.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $3.26 EPS. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that MSCI Inc. will post 14.79 EPS for the current fiscal year.

MSCI Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, August 30th. Shareholders of record on Friday, August 16th were issued a $1.60 dividend. This represents a $6.40 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.14%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, August 16th. MSCI’s payout ratio is 43.69%.

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.