MSCI (NYSE:MSCI) Price Target Cut to $662.00 by Analysts at Morgan Stanley

MSCI (NYSE:MSCI) had its target price lowered by research analysts at Morgan Stanley from $700.00 to $662.00 in a report released on Tuesday, Benzinga reports. The firm currently has an “overweight” rating on the technology company’s stock. Morgan Stanley’s target price would indicate a potential upside of 17.47% from the stock’s current price.

Several other equities research analysts have also weighed in on MSCI. Raymond James Financial lifted their price objective on MSCI from $730.00 to $760.00 and gave the stock a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 8th. Rothschild & Co Redburn set a $690.00 target price on shares of MSCI in a report on Thursday, June 18th. Evercore set a $722.00 price target on MSCI in a report on Wednesday, July 22nd. UBS Group set a $615.00 price objective on shares of MSCI in a research report on Wednesday, July 22nd. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group assumed coverage on shares of MSCI in a report on Friday, July 17th. They set a “buy” rating and a $760.00 price objective for the company. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating and eleven have assigned a Buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, MSCI has an average rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $705.92.

MSCI Stock Down 0.8%

MSCI stock traded down $4.44 during midday trading on Tuesday, hitting $563.57. 146,558 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 630,721. The stock has a market capitalization of $40.97 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.83, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.14 and a beta of 1.24. MSCI has a 52-week low of $501.08 and a 52-week high of $644.77. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $559.10 and its 200-day moving average price is $574.63.

MSCI (NYSE:MSCI) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, July 21st. The technology company reported $4.94 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $4.99 by ($0.05). The business had revenue of $867.00 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $870.71 million. MSCI had a net margin of 40.74% and a negative return on equity of 55.19%. The business’s revenue was up 12.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $4.17 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts predict that MSCI will post 19.61 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On MSCI

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. BlackRock Inc. purchased a new position in MSCI during the second quarter valued at $3,062,626,000. Bamco Inc. NY bought a new stake in shares of MSCI in the 2nd quarter worth $1,798,710,000. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. grew its stake in shares of MSCI by 13.2% in the fourth quarter. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. now owns 1,446,291 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $829,781,000 after acquiring an additional 168,405 shares during the period. Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd. bought a new position in MSCI during the second quarter valued at approximately $480,613,000. Finally, Generation Investment Management LLP purchased a new stake in MSCI during the second quarter valued at $301,493,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 89.97% of the company’s stock.

MSCI Company Profile

MSCI Inc is a global provider of investment decision-support tools and services for institutional investors, asset managers, banks, wealth managers and other financial professionals. The company is best known for its equity, fixed-income and multi-asset-class indexes, which are used as benchmarks and as the basis for investment products such as exchange-traded funds and other index-linked strategies.

In addition to indexes, MSCI provides portfolio analytics, risk-management and performance-measurement tools designed to help clients evaluate exposures, construct portfolios and manage investment risks.