Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC Lowers Stake in MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX)

Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC lessened its stake in MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) by 4.7% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 3,299 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after selling 162 shares during the period. Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC’s holdings in MarketAxess were worth $845,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in MKTX. Accent Capital Management LLC bought a new stake in MarketAxess during the 3rd quarter valued at $25,000. Goodman Advisory Group LLC purchased a new position in shares of MarketAxess during the second quarter valued at $27,000. Blue Trust Inc. raised its holdings in shares of MarketAxess by 405.1% in the second quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 197 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $43,000 after acquiring an additional 158 shares in the last quarter. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC purchased a new stake in MarketAxess in the third quarter worth about $54,000. Finally, Livforsakringsbolaget Skandia Omsesidigt grew its holdings in MarketAxess by 555.6% during the 3rd quarter. Livforsakringsbolaget Skandia Omsesidigt now owns 236 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $60,000 after acquiring an additional 200 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 99.01% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts have recently commented on the stock. Piper Sandler restated a “neutral” rating and issued a $265.00 price target on shares of MarketAxess in a report on Thursday, November 7th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods boosted their price objective on shares of MarketAxess from $270.00 to $276.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 7th. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their target price on MarketAxess from $204.00 to $233.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, September 30th. UBS Group boosted their price target on MarketAxess from $330.00 to $335.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 7th. Finally, Citigroup raised their price objective on MarketAxess from $310.00 to $325.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, October 4th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $266.70.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other MarketAxess news, Chairman Richard M. Mcvey sold 10,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, November 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $267.67, for a total transaction of $2,676,700.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chairman now directly owns 562,029 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $150,438,302.43. This trade represents a 1.75 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, General Counsel Scott Pintoff sold 300 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $240.57, for a total transaction of $72,171.00. Following the completion of the sale, the general counsel now directly owns 8,302 shares in the company, valued at $1,997,212.14. This trade represents a 3.49 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 30,300 shares of company stock valued at $8,183,871. 2.66% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

MarketAxess Stock Performance

Shares of MKTX stock opened at $232.92 on Tuesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $8.78 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.56, a PEG ratio of 10.54 and a beta of 1.00. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $269.63 and its 200-day simple moving average is $242.39. MarketAxess Holdings Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $192.42 and a fifty-two week high of $297.97.

MarketAxess (NASDAQ:MKTX) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, November 6th. The financial services provider reported $1.90 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.85 by $0.05. MarketAxess had a net margin of 34.32% and a return on equity of 20.93%. The business had revenue of $206.70 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $207.17 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $1.46 EPS. MarketAxess’s revenue for the quarter was up 20.0% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts forecast that MarketAxess Holdings Inc. will post 7.38 earnings per share for the current year.

MarketAxess Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, December 4th. Investors of record on Wednesday, November 20th were paid a $0.74 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, November 20th. This represents a $2.96 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.27%. MarketAxess’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 40.11%.

MarketAxess Company Profile

MarketAxess Holdings Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates an electronic trading platform for institutional investor and broker-dealer companies worldwide. The company offers trading technology that provides liquidity access in U.S. high-grade bonds, U.S. high-yield bonds, emerging market debt, eurobonds, municipal bonds, U.S.