Royal Bank of Canada Reaffirms “Sector Perform” Rating for CME Group (NASDAQ:CME)

CME Group (NASDAQ:CME)‘s stock had its “sector perform” rating restated by analysts at Royal Bank of Canada in a research note issued on Monday,Benzinga reports. They currently have a $235.00 target price on the financial services provider’s stock. Royal Bank of Canada’s target price would suggest a potential upside of 2.98% from the company’s current price.

CME has been the topic of a number of other reports. The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their price objective on CME Group from $195.00 to $198.00 and gave the company a “sell” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 3rd. Barclays upped their price target on CME Group from $231.00 to $257.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 9th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft cut their price objective on shares of CME Group from $227.00 to $226.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, November 11th. Bank of America upped their target price on shares of CME Group from $177.00 to $180.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a report on Thursday, October 3rd. Finally, TD Cowen began coverage on shares of CME Group in a report on Thursday, September 26th. They issued a “hold” rating and a $221.00 price target for the company. Four analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have assigned a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $229.00.

CME Group Stock Performance

NASDAQ CME traded down $4.31 during trading on Monday, hitting $228.19. 404,368 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,377,064. The business has a 50 day moving average of $232.37 and a 200-day moving average of $217.72. CME Group has a 12-month low of $190.70 and a 12-month high of $249.02. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.09, a quick ratio of 1.02 and a current ratio of 1.02. The stock has a market capitalization of $82.23 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.99, a PEG ratio of 5.41 and a beta of 0.56.

CME Group (NASDAQ:CME) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 23rd. The financial services provider reported $2.68 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.65 by $0.03. The business had revenue of $1.58 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.59 billion. CME Group had a net margin of 57.34% and a return on equity of 13.39%. CME Group’s revenue was up 18.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $2.25 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that CME Group will post 10.22 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

CME Group declared that its Board of Directors has authorized a share buyback plan on Thursday, December 5th that permits the company to buyback $3.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization permits the financial services provider to repurchase up to 3.4% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are often an indication that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other CME Group news, Director Martin J. Gepsman sold 400 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $222.92, for a total transaction of $89,168.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 25,067 shares in the company, valued at $5,587,935.64. This represents a 1.57 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, insider Sunil Cutinho sold 4,500 shares of CME Group stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, October 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $226.64, for a total value of $1,019,880.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 27,053 shares in the company, valued at approximately $6,131,291.92. This represents a 14.26 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 7,274 shares of company stock worth $1,648,071 in the last quarter. 0.30% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in CME. Worldquant Millennium Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in CME Group by 58.4% in the 3rd quarter. Worldquant Millennium Advisors LLC now owns 613,828 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $135,441,000 after buying an additional 226,306 shares during the period. Magnetar Financial LLC lifted its stake in CME Group by 149.4% in the second quarter. Magnetar Financial LLC now owns 23,759 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $4,671,000 after acquiring an additional 14,234 shares during the period. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA boosted its holdings in CME Group by 18.3% in the third quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 1,826,501 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $403,017,000 after acquiring an additional 283,171 shares in the last quarter. Bank of Montreal Can increased its position in CME Group by 41.8% during the 3rd quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 1,028,090 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $224,432,000 after purchasing an additional 303,169 shares during the period. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in CME Group by 1.8% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 8,284,745 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $1,823,964,000 after purchasing an additional 142,692 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 87.75% of the company’s stock.

CME Group Company Profile

CME Group Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates contract markets for the trading of futures and options on futures contracts worldwide. It offers futures and options products based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, agricultural commodities, energy, and metals, as well as fixed income and foreign currency trading services.