Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. Grows Position in MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX)

Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its stake in MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) by 1.4% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The firm owned 363,224 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 5,153 shares during the quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. owned about 0.96% of MarketAxess worth $82,103,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Van ECK Associates Corp grew its holdings in MarketAxess by 13.4% in the fourth 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 grew its stake in MarketAxess by 17.5% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 1,959,043 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $501,907,000 after buying an additional 291,134 shares during the period. Primecap Management Co. CA grew its stake in MarketAxess by 0.6% during the third quarter. Primecap Management Co. CA now owns 1,338,922 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $343,032,000 after buying an additional 8,042 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in MarketAxess by 14.9% during the third 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 grew its stake in MarketAxess by 2.6% during the fourth quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 440,934 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $99,669,000 after buying an additional 11,291 shares during the period. 99.01% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities research analysts have issued reports on MKTX shares. Barclays decreased their price objective on shares of MarketAxess from $256.00 to $225.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, February 7th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft boosted their price objective on shares of MarketAxess from $258.00 to $264.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, November 11th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods decreased their price objective on shares of MarketAxess from $251.00 to $225.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, February 7th. The Goldman Sachs Group reduced their target price on shares of MarketAxess from $235.00 to $210.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, February 10th. Finally, UBS Group reduced their target price on shares of MarketAxess from $330.00 to $305.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, February 7th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $254.78.

MarketAxess Stock Performance

MarketAxess stock opened at $212.57 on Tuesday. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $209.63 and a 200-day simple moving average of $242.22. The firm has a market capitalization of $8.01 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.24, a P/E/G ratio of 3.89 and a beta of 1.05. MarketAxess Holdings Inc. has a one year low of $186.84 and a one year high of $296.68.

MarketAxess (NASDAQ:MKTX) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 6th. The financial services provider reported $1.73 EPS for the quarter, topping 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%. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that MarketAxess Holdings Inc. will post 7.79 earnings per share for the current year.

MarketAxess Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, March 5th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, February 19th were given a dividend of $0.76 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, February 19th. This represents a $3.04 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.43%. This is a positive change from MarketAxess’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.74. MarketAxess’s dividend payout ratio is currently 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.