Raymond James Financial Services Advisors Inc. Has $280,000 Holdings in MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX)

Raymond James Financial Services Advisors Inc. lessened its holdings in shares of MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) by 14.6% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 956 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after selling 164 shares during the quarter. Raymond James Financial Services Advisors Inc.’s holdings in MarketAxess were worth $280,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of MKTX. Royal Bank of Canada boosted its holdings in shares of MarketAxess by 2.0% during the third quarter. Royal Bank of Canada now owns 1,705,958 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $364,462,000 after acquiring an additional 33,288 shares during the period. Van ECK Associates Corp boosted its holdings in shares of MarketAxess by 146.4% during the third quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 1,265,784 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $270,422,000 after acquiring an additional 752,111 shares during the period. Primecap Management Co. CA boosted its holdings in shares of MarketAxess by 0.9% during the third quarter. Primecap Management Co. CA now owns 1,118,220 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $238,897,000 after acquiring an additional 10,450 shares during the period. FMR LLC boosted its holdings in shares of MarketAxess by 385.6% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 545,563 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $116,554,000 after acquiring an additional 433,217 shares during the period. Finally, Artisan Partners Limited Partnership boosted its holdings in shares of MarketAxess by 4.5% during the third quarter. Artisan Partners Limited Partnership now owns 540,927 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $115,564,000 after acquiring an additional 23,070 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 99.01% of the company’s stock.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CRO Kevin M. Mcpherson sold 2,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, February 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $221.26, for a total value of $442,520.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive now directly owns 70,092 shares in the company, valued at approximately $15,508,555.92. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Corporate insiders own 2.00% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on MKTX. The Goldman Sachs Group reduced their price objective on MarketAxess from $263.00 to $225.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, February 1st. Piper Sandler cut their price target on MarketAxess from $250.00 to $237.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, April 12th. Rosenblatt Securities cut their price target on MarketAxess from $229.00 to $210.00 and set a “sell” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, February 1st. William Blair reiterated an “outperform” rating on shares of MarketAxess in a research note on Tuesday, January 23rd. Finally, Barclays cut their price target on MarketAxess from $239.00 to $236.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, April 8th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have assigned a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $252.80.

MarketAxess Price Performance

NASDAQ MKTX opened at $204.43 on Tuesday. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $215.98 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $237.58. MarketAxess Holdings Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $199.34 and a fifty-two week high of $329.15. The stock has a market capitalization of $7.69 billion, a PE ratio of 29.84, a PEG ratio of 4.26 and a beta of 0.98.

MarketAxess (NASDAQ:MKTX) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, January 31st. The financial services provider reported $1.84 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.73 by $0.11. MarketAxess had a return on equity of 21.76% and a net margin of 34.29%. The firm had revenue of $197.20 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $196.70 million. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $1.58 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 10.8% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that MarketAxess Holdings Inc. will post 7.28 earnings per share for the current year.

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.