MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI) Short Interest Update

MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI) saw a significant decrease in short interest in the month of November. As of November 30th, there was short interest totalling 728,700 shares, a decrease of 16.0% from the November 15th total of 867,100 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 460,600 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 1.6 days. Approximately 1.0% of the company’s shares are short sold.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms recently commented on MSCI. Redburn Atlantic raised MSCI from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $680.00 target price for the company in a research note on Wednesday, October 9th. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price objective on MSCI from $570.00 to $600.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, October 11th. UBS Group cut their target price on shares of MSCI from $695.00 to $680.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Wolfe Research upgraded shares of MSCI from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday. Finally, Morgan Stanley boosted their price target on shares of MSCI from $662.00 to $695.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, MSCI presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $634.58.

MSCI Stock Performance

Shares of MSCI stock opened at $625.10 on Friday. MSCI has a 1 year low of $439.95 and a 1 year high of $642.45. The firm has a market cap of $48.99 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 41.04, a PEG ratio of 3.27 and a beta of 1.10. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $599.91 and its two-hundred day moving average is $554.66.

MSCI (NYSE:MSCI) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The technology company reported $3.86 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.77 by $0.09. The company had revenue of $724.70 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $716.15 million. MSCI had a negative return on equity of 162.06% and a net margin of 43.06%. The firm’s revenue was up 15.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $3.45 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts predict that MSCI will post 14.98 EPS for the current year.

MSCI Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 29th. Investors of record on Friday, November 15th were paid a dividend of $1.60 per share. This represents a $6.40 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.02%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, November 15th. MSCI’s dividend payout ratio is currently 42.02%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other MSCI news, CEO Henry A. Fernandez purchased 2,900 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, December 5th. The stock was acquired at an average price of $612.80 per share, for a total transaction of $1,777,120.00. Following the completion of the purchase, the chief executive officer now directly owns 330,379 shares in the company, valued at approximately $202,456,251.20. The trade was a 0.89 % increase in their position. The purchase was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Insiders own 3.20% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of MSCI. Principal Financial Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of MSCI by 74.9% during the second quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 1,456,194 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $701,522,000 after buying an additional 623,712 shares during the period. Edgewood Management LLC raised its stake in MSCI by 16.9% during the 3rd quarter. Edgewood Management LLC now owns 2,195,639 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,279,904,000 after acquiring an additional 318,214 shares during the last quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA lifted its position in MSCI by 14.3% during the 3rd quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 1,587,723 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $925,531,000 after acquiring an additional 198,666 shares during the period. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. lifted its position in MSCI by 358.3% during the 3rd quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 133,636 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $77,900,000 after acquiring an additional 104,474 shares during the period. Finally, Champlain Investment Partners LLC acquired a new position in shares of MSCI in the third quarter valued at approximately $56,101,000. 89.97% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.