Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership Raises Position in MarketAxess Holdings Inc. $MKTX

Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership raised its position in shares of MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) by 2.3% during the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 295,470 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 6,728 shares during the quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership owned approximately 0.83% of MarketAxess worth $48,747,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Primecap Management Co. CA lifted its stake in shares of MarketAxess by 42.4% in the 4th quarter. Primecap Management Co. CA now owns 3,175,425 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $575,546,000 after purchasing an additional 944,830 shares during the period. AQR Capital Management LLC grew its stake in MarketAxess by 169.0% in the fourth quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 2,558,097 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $463,655,000 after purchasing an additional 1,607,009 shares during the period. North Reef Capital Management LP raised its holdings in MarketAxess by 76.6% in the fourth quarter. North Reef Capital Management LP now owns 1,609,330 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $291,691,000 after purchasing an additional 697,972 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp raised its holdings in MarketAxess by 4.6% in the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 1,532,696 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $342,312,000 after purchasing an additional 67,290 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Bank of Montreal Can lifted its position in MarketAxess by 5,086.4% during the fourth quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 951,024 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $172,373,000 after buying an additional 932,687 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 99.01% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have recently commented on MKTX. UBS Group dropped their target price on shares of MarketAxess from $215.00 to $200.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, July 8th. Weiss Ratings lowered shares of MarketAxess from a “hold (c-)” rating to a “sell (d+)” rating in a research note on Wednesday, May 6th. Morgan Stanley lowered their price target on shares of MarketAxess from $195.00 to $129.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, July 10th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods began coverage on shares of MarketAxess in a research note on Wednesday, April 8th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $195.00 price objective on the stock. Finally, Bank of America upgraded shares of MarketAxess from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $170.00 price objective on the stock in a report on Friday, June 12th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, nine have issued a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $163.18.

MarketAxess Stock Up 1.1%

Shares of NASDAQ:MKTX opened at $117.97 on Tuesday. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $120.09 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $152.46. The stock has a market capitalization of $4.19 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.94, a PEG ratio of 3.14 and a beta of 0.88. MarketAxess Holdings Inc. has a 12-month low of $108.75 and a 12-month high of $211.16. The company has a current ratio of 2.17, a quick ratio of 2.17 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.19.

MarketAxess (NASDAQ:MKTX) last released its earnings results on Thursday, May 7th. The financial services provider reported $2.25 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.15 by $0.10. MarketAxess had a return on equity of 22.28% and a net margin of 35.53%.The business had revenue of $233.38 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $231.91 million. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $1.87 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.9% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts anticipate that MarketAxess Holdings Inc. will post 8.01 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

About MarketAxess

MarketAxess Holdings Inc operates a leading global electronic trading platform specializing in fixed-income securities and related products. The company’s network enables institutional investors and broker-dealers to trade corporate bonds, municipal securities, emerging markets debt, U.S. Treasuries and credit default swaps in an automated, multi-dealer environment. MarketAxess also offers portfolio trading, data analytics, best-execution tools and post-trade services to streamline workflows and enhance price discovery across its marketplace.

In addition to core voice-like trading protocols, MarketAxess provides Open Trading®, an anonymous, all-to-all trading protocol designed to improve liquidity and transaction efficiency.