Short Interest in MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) Increases By 51.9%

MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) was the recipient of a large growth in short interest in March. As of March 13th, there was short interest totaling 2,233,705 shares, a growth of 51.9% from the February 26th total of 1,470,800 shares. Approximately 6.5% of the shares of the stock are sold short. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 556,293 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 4.0 days.

Analyst Ratings Changes

MKTX has been the topic of several analyst reports. Argus cut MarketAxess from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 17th. Barclays cut their target price on MarketAxess from $182.00 to $178.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, February 9th. Wall Street Zen raised shares of MarketAxess from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, February 7th. Morgan Stanley cut their price objective on shares of MarketAxess from $204.00 to $195.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, January 15th. Finally, UBS Group reduced their target price on shares of MarketAxess from $240.00 to $225.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, January 9th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, eight have assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $200.40.

MarketAxess Trading Down 1.6%

MKTX stock traded down $2.60 during trading on Friday, hitting $164.12. The company had a trading volume of 324,306 shares, compared to its average volume of 505,570. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $175.90 and a 200-day simple moving average of $173.87. The company has a quick ratio of 2.80, a current ratio of 2.80 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.19. MarketAxess has a 52-week low of $156.17 and a 52-week high of $232.84. The firm has a market capitalization of $5.83 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.64, a PEG ratio of 2.72 and a beta of 0.93.

MarketAxess (NASDAQ:MKTX) last released its quarterly earnings data on Friday, February 6th. The financial services provider reported $1.68 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.72 by ($0.04). MarketAxess had a return on equity of 20.88% and a net margin of 29.14%.The firm had revenue of $209.41 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $214.06 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $1.73 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 3.5% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts forecast that MarketAxess will post 7.79 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

MarketAxess Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, March 4th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, February 18th were paid a dividend of $0.78 per share. This is a boost from MarketAxess’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.76. This represents a $3.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.9%. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, February 18th. MarketAxess’s payout ratio is 46.85%.

Institutional Trading of MarketAxess

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of MKTX. MUFG Securities EMEA plc purchased a new position in shares of MarketAxess in the 2nd quarter valued at $25,000. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. lifted its stake in shares of MarketAxess by 200.0% during the 1st quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 120 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $26,000 after purchasing an additional 80 shares during the last quarter. Activest Wealth Management bought a new stake in MarketAxess during the fourth quarter valued at about $28,000. Pilgrim Partners Asia Pte Ltd bought a new stake in MarketAxess during the third quarter valued at about $38,000. Finally, Stance Capital LLC purchased a new position in MarketAxess in the third quarter valued at about $42,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 99.01% of the company’s stock.

About MarketAxess

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.