Jefferies Financial Group Inc. Cuts Stock Position in MarketAxess Holdings Inc. $MKTX

Jefferies Financial Group Inc. lowered its holdings in MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) by 87.5% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 4,758 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after selling 33,335 shares during the period. Jefferies Financial Group Inc.’s holdings in MarketAxess were worth $862,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of MKTX. Jones Financial Companies Lllp lifted its position in shares of MarketAxess by 151.0% during the 1st quarter. Jones Financial Companies Lllp now owns 2,683 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $580,000 after buying an additional 1,614 shares during the last quarter. Empowered Funds LLC lifted its position in shares of MarketAxess by 8.4% during the 1st quarter. Empowered Funds LLC now owns 1,716 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $371,000 after buying an additional 133 shares during the last quarter. Woodline Partners LP lifted its position in shares of MarketAxess by 40.7% during the 1st quarter. Woodline Partners LP now owns 3,185 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $689,000 after buying an additional 921 shares during the last quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. lifted its position in shares of MarketAxess by 200.0% during the 1st quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 120 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $26,000 after buying an additional 80 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Sivia Capital Partners LLC purchased a new position in shares of MarketAxess during the 2nd quarter valued at $406,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 99.01% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

MKTX has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Weiss Ratings cut MarketAxess from a “hold (c-)” rating to a “sell (d+)” rating in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. Barclays dropped their price target on MarketAxess from $189.00 to $170.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, May 11th. UBS Group dropped their price target on MarketAxess from $225.00 to $215.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, May 11th. Wall Street Zen raised MarketAxess from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, February 7th. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods initiated coverage on MarketAxess in a research report on Wednesday, April 8th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $195.00 price target on the stock. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $190.88.

MarketAxess Stock Performance

Shares of MKTX opened at $130.04 on Friday. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $157.37 and its 200 day simple moving average is $168.81. The stock has a market capitalization of $4.62 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 15.37, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.96 and a beta of 0.92. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.19, a quick ratio of 2.17 and a current ratio of 2.17. MarketAxess Holdings Inc. has a 52-week low of $129.55 and a 52-week high of $228.16.

MarketAxess (NASDAQ:MKTX) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 7th. The financial services provider reported $2.25 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.15 by $0.10. The business had revenue of $233.38 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $231.91 million. MarketAxess had a return on equity of 22.28% and a net margin of 35.53%.The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 11.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $1.87 EPS. Research analysts forecast that MarketAxess Holdings Inc. will post 8.04 EPS for the current fiscal year.

MarketAxess Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, June 3rd. Investors of record on Wednesday, May 20th will be issued a dividend of $0.78 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, May 20th. This represents a $3.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.4%. MarketAxess’s dividend payout ratio is 36.88%.

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.