United Capital Financial Advisors LLC Purchases New Shares in CME Group Inc. $CME

United Capital Financial Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME) during the second quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund acquired 44,570 shares of the financial services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $9,842,000.

Several other large investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Whipplewood Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in CME Group by 2,075.0% in the 1st quarter. Whipplewood Advisors LLC now owns 87 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $26,000 after purchasing an additional 83 shares during the period. Elkhorn Partners Limited Partnership bought a new position in shares of CME Group during the fourth quarter worth approximately $27,000. Hilton Head Capital Partners LLC acquired a new stake in shares of CME Group in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $28,000. Legacy Wealth Managment LLC ID raised its position in shares of CME Group by 191.9% in the fourth quarter. Legacy Wealth Managment LLC ID now owns 108 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $29,000 after buying an additional 71 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Main Street Group LTD bought a new stake in shares of CME Group in the first quarter valued at approximately $32,000. Institutional investors own 87.75% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts recently issued reports on CME shares. The Goldman Sachs Group reduced their price target on CME Group from $267.00 to $245.00 and set a “sell” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, June 30th. Weiss Ratings cut CME Group from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 11th. Bank of America upped their target price on CME Group from $226.00 to $230.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 23rd. TD Cowen reduced their target price on CME Group from $323.00 to $273.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, June 22nd. Finally, Wall Street Zen cut CME Group from a “sell” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a research report on Saturday, August 1st. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have issued a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $288.56.

CME Group Stock Performance

NASDAQ CME opened at $280.94 on Friday. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $253.01 and its 200 day simple moving average is $279.09. The firm has a market capitalization of $101.02 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.83, a P/E/G ratio of 3.34 and a beta of 0.23. The company has a current ratio of 1.02, a quick ratio of 1.02 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13. CME Group Inc. has a 1 year low of $218.31 and a 1 year high of $329.16.

CME Group (NASDAQ:CME) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 22nd. The financial services provider reported $2.99 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.91 by $0.08. CME Group had a net margin of 63.30% and a return on equity of 15.60%. The business had revenue of $1.71 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.68 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $2.96 earnings per share. The company’s revenue was up .8% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts expect that CME Group Inc. will post 12.27 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

CME Group Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, September 25th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, September 9th will be issued a dividend of $1.30 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, September 9th. This represents a $5.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.9%. CME Group’s payout ratio is 44.11%.

Insider Buying and Selling at CME Group

In other CME Group news, Director William R. Shepard acquired 325 shares of CME Group stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, June 25th. The shares were acquired at an average cost of $230.57 per share, with a total value of $74,935.25. Following the completion of the purchase, the director directly owned 260,442 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $60,050,111.94. This represents a 0.12% increase in their position. The acquisition was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. 0.30% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

CME Group Company Profile

CME Group Inc is a global markets company that operates some of the world’s largest and most liquid derivatives exchanges, including the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) and COMEX. The firm offers futures and options contracts across a broad range of asset classes — including interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, agricultural commodities and metals — and serves a diverse client base of institutional investors, commercial hedgers, brokers and retail participants.

The company’s core services include electronic trading on the CME Globex platform, central clearing through CME Clearing, and distribution of market data, indexes and analytics.