Citigroup Inc. Increases Position in MSCI Inc $MSCI

Citigroup Inc. increased its stake in shares of MSCI Inc (NYSE:MSCI) by 25.4% in the second quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 147,833 shares of the technology company’s stock after buying an additional 29,990 shares during the period. Citigroup Inc.’s holdings in MSCI were worth $85,261,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Gries Financial LLC raised its holdings in MSCI by 1.3% in the second quarter. Gries Financial LLC now owns 1,505 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $868,000 after purchasing an additional 20 shares in the last quarter. Copperwynd Financial LLC grew its position in shares of MSCI by 1.1% in the 2nd quarter. Copperwynd Financial LLC now owns 1,793 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $1,034,000 after buying an additional 20 shares during the last quarter. Harbour Investments Inc. raised its stake in shares of MSCI by 8.5% during the 2nd quarter. Harbour Investments Inc. now owns 268 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $155,000 after acquiring an additional 21 shares in the last quarter. Pinnacle Associates Ltd. lifted its position in MSCI by 2.1% during the first quarter. Pinnacle Associates Ltd. now owns 1,072 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $606,000 after acquiring an additional 22 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Covestor Ltd boosted its stake in MSCI by 12.5% in the first quarter. Covestor Ltd now owns 234 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $133,000 after acquiring an additional 26 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 89.97% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several analysts have recently commented on MSCI shares. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price objective on MSCI from $533.00 to $570.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 29th. UBS Group increased their price target on MSCI from $700.00 to $710.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 29th. Barclays boosted their price target on MSCI from $650.00 to $660.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 29th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “buy (b-)” rating on shares of MSCI in a research report on Thursday, November 13th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on shares of MSCI from $655.00 to $680.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 29th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, ten have issued a Buy rating and three have given a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $655.90.

MSCI Stock Performance

Shares of MSCI stock opened at $556.74 on Wednesday. MSCI Inc has a fifty-two week low of $486.73 and a fifty-two week high of $642.45. The firm has a market capitalization of $41.83 billion, a PE ratio of 35.28, a P/E/G ratio of 2.76 and a beta of 1.34. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $563.87 and its 200-day simple moving average is $563.32.

MSCI (NYSE:MSCI) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, October 28th. The technology company reported $4.47 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $4.37 by $0.10. MSCI had a negative return on equity of 110.94% and a net margin of 40.03%.The firm had revenue of $793.43 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $794.87 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $3.86 earnings per share. MSCI’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.5% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts forecast that MSCI Inc will post 16.86 earnings per share for the current year.

MSCI Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 28th. Stockholders of record on Friday, November 14th will be issued a $1.80 dividend. This represents a $7.20 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.3%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, November 14th. MSCI’s dividend payout ratio is 45.63%.

MSCI declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock buyback program on Tuesday, October 28th that allows the company to buyback $3.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization allows the technology company to reacquire up to 7.1% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are usually an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

MSCI Company Profile

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.