Brevan Howard Capital Management LP Increases Stake in MarketAxess Holdings Inc. $MKTX

Brevan Howard Capital Management LP grew its position in MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) by 81.3% during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 33,942 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 15,217 shares during the period. Brevan Howard Capital Management LP owned about 0.09% of MarketAxess worth $5,914,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Jones Financial Companies Lllp boosted its holdings in MarketAxess by 151.0% in the 1st quarter. Jones Financial Companies Lllp now owns 2,683 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $580,000 after purchasing an additional 1,614 shares in the last quarter. Empowered Funds LLC raised its stake in shares of MarketAxess by 8.4% during the 1st quarter. Empowered Funds LLC now owns 1,716 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $371,000 after buying an additional 133 shares in the last quarter. Woodline Partners LP lifted its holdings in shares of MarketAxess by 40.7% in the 1st quarter. Woodline Partners LP now owns 3,185 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $689,000 after buying an additional 921 shares during the period. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of MarketAxess by 200.0% in the 1st quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 120 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $26,000 after buying an additional 80 shares during the period. Finally, Sivia Capital Partners LLC purchased a new stake in shares of MarketAxess in the second quarter valued at approximately $406,000. 99.01% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms have issued reports on MKTX. Piper Sandler cut their price objective on MarketAxess from $180.00 to $175.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 14th. UBS Group decreased their target price on shares of MarketAxess from $240.00 to $225.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, January 9th. Argus lowered their price target on shares of MarketAxess from $212.00 to $205.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, December 17th. Morgan Stanley cut their price target on shares of MarketAxess from $204.00 to $195.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, January 15th. Finally, Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of MarketAxess from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, February 7th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, seven have issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $200.40.

MarketAxess Trading Down 0.8%

Shares of MarketAxess stock opened at $180.12 on Monday. MarketAxess Holdings Inc. has a 1 year low of $156.17 and a 1 year high of $232.84. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.19, a current ratio of 2.80 and a quick ratio of 2.80. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $176.35 and a 200 day moving average price of $174.73. The company has a market capitalization of $6.40 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.05, a P/E/G ratio of 2.98 and a beta of 0.93.

MarketAxess (NASDAQ:MKTX) last released its quarterly earnings results on Friday, February 6th. The financial services provider reported $1.68 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.72 by ($0.04). The firm had revenue of $209.41 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $214.06 million. MarketAxess had a return on equity of 20.88% and a net margin of 29.14%.MarketAxess’s revenue for the quarter was up 3.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $1.73 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts anticipate that MarketAxess Holdings Inc. will post 7.79 EPS for the current fiscal year.

MarketAxess Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, March 4th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, February 18th were issued a $0.78 dividend. This is a boost from MarketAxess’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.76. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, February 18th. This represents a $3.12 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.7%. MarketAxess’s payout ratio is presently 46.85%.

MarketAxess Profile

MarketAxess Holdings Inc operates a leading global electronic trading platform specializing in fixed-income securities and related products. The company’s network enables institutional investors and broker-dealers to trade corporate bonds, municipal securities, emerging markets debt, U.S. Treasuries and credit default swaps in an automated, multi-dealer environment. MarketAxess also offers portfolio trading, data analytics, best-execution tools and post-trade services to streamline workflows and enhance price discovery across its marketplace.

In addition to core voice-like trading protocols, MarketAxess provides Open Trading®, an anonymous, all-to-all trading protocol designed to improve liquidity and transaction efficiency.