CME Group Inc. (CME) To Go Ex-Dividend on March 10th

CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, February 12th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, March 10th will be given a dividend of 1.30 per share by the financial services provider on Thursday, March 26th. This represents a c) annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.6%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, March 10th. This is a 4.0% increase from CME Group’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.25.

CME Group has decreased its dividend by an average of 0.0%per year over the last three years. CME Group has a dividend payout ratio of 44.8% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect CME Group to earn $10.99 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $5.20 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 47.3%.

CME Group Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ CME opened at $317.10 on Friday. CME Group has a 1 year low of $248.53 and a 1 year high of $329.16. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.12, a current ratio of 1.03 and a quick ratio of 1.03. The company’s 50-day moving average is $292.18 and its 200 day moving average is $277.66. The stock has a market capitalization of $114.35 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.41, a P/E/G ratio of 3.69 and a beta of 0.24.

CME Group (NASDAQ:CME) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 4th. The financial services provider reported $2.77 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.75 by $0.02. The business had revenue of $1.65 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.64 billion. CME Group had a net margin of 62.45% and a return on equity of 14.65%. CME Group’s quarterly revenue was up 8.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business posted $2.52 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts expect that CME Group will post 10.49 earnings per share for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts have recently commented on the company. Rothschild & Co Redburn raised their target price on CME Group from $300.00 to $333.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, February 12th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised their target price on shares of CME Group from $264.00 to $266.00 and gave the company a “sell” rating in a research note on Monday, February 9th. Erste Group Bank raised CME Group from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Thursday. Bank of America boosted their target price on CME Group from $201.00 to $209.00 in a report on Wednesday, December 10th. Finally, Barclays raised their price target on CME Group from $304.00 to $312.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, February 5th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eight have issued a Buy rating, six have assigned a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, CME Group currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $302.71.

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.