Investors Purchase Large Volume of Call Options on MarketAxess (NASDAQ:MKTX)

MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) was the recipient of some unusual options trading on Monday. Stock traders purchased 20,050 call options on the company. This is an increase of approximately 16,069% compared to the average daily volume of 124 call options.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts recently issued reports on MKTX shares. UBS Group reduced their price objective on MarketAxess from $225.00 to $215.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, May 11th. Barclays reduced their price objective on MarketAxess from $189.00 to $170.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, May 11th. Wall Street Zen raised MarketAxess from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, February 7th. Weiss Ratings cut MarketAxess from a “hold (c-)” rating to a “sell (d+)” rating in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods started coverage on MarketAxess in a research report on Wednesday, April 8th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $195.00 price objective for the company. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $190.88.

MarketAxess Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:MKTX opened at $141.11 on Tuesday. MarketAxess has a fifty-two week low of $137.27 and a fifty-two week high of $228.16. The business has a 50-day moving average of $165.66 and a two-hundred day moving average of $170.56. The stock has a market capitalization of $5.02 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.68, a P/E/G ratio of 2.65 and a beta of 0.92. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.19, a current ratio of 2.17 and a quick ratio of 2.17.

MarketAxess (NASDAQ:MKTX) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 7th. The financial services provider reported $2.25 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.15 by $0.10. MarketAxess had a return on equity of 22.28% and a net margin of 35.53%.The business had revenue of $233.38 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $231.91 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $1.87 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 11.9% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts predict that MarketAxess will post 8.08 EPS for the current fiscal year.

MarketAxess Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, June 3rd. Investors of record on Wednesday, May 20th will be given a dividend of $0.78 per share. This represents a $3.12 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.2%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, May 20th. MarketAxess’s payout ratio is currently 36.88%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On MarketAxess

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in MKTX. AQR Capital Management LLC lifted its position in shares of MarketAxess by 169.0% during the 4th quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 2,558,097 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $463,655,000 after purchasing an additional 1,607,009 shares during the last quarter. Primecap Management Co. CA increased its stake in MarketAxess by 42.4% during the fourth quarter. Primecap Management Co. CA now owns 3,175,425 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $575,546,000 after acquiring an additional 944,830 shares during the period. Bank of Montreal Can increased its stake in MarketAxess by 5,086.4% during the fourth quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 951,024 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $172,373,000 after acquiring an additional 932,687 shares during the period. North Reef Capital Management LP increased its stake in MarketAxess by 76.6% during the fourth quarter. North Reef Capital Management LP now owns 1,609,330 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $291,691,000 after acquiring an additional 697,972 shares during the period. Finally, Norges Bank bought a new position in MarketAxess during the fourth quarter valued at about $91,324,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.