Brokerages Set MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) Price Target at $163.18

Shares of MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) have been given a consensus recommendation of “Hold” by the thirteen ratings firms that are presently covering the company, MarketBeat.com reports. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have given a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the company. The average 12-month price objective among analysts that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $163.1818.

MKTX has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. Benchmark reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of MarketAxess in a report on Wednesday, July 8th. Weiss Ratings cut MarketAxess from a “hold (c-)” rating to a “sell (d+)” rating in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods started coverage on MarketAxess in a research report on Wednesday, April 8th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $195.00 target price on the stock. Piper Sandler cut their price target on MarketAxess from $175.00 to $128.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, July 15th. Finally, Morgan Stanley reduced their price target on MarketAxess from $195.00 to $129.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Friday, July 10th.

MarketAxess Price Performance

NASDAQ:MKTX opened at $116.69 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.19, a current ratio of 2.17 and a quick ratio of 2.17. The firm has a market cap of $4.15 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.79, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.14 and a beta of 0.88. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $120.55 and a 200-day moving average price of $153.10. MarketAxess has a 1-year low of $108.75 and a 1-year high of $214.42.

MarketAxess (NASDAQ:MKTX) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, May 7th. The financial services provider reported $2.25 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.15 by $0.10. The firm had revenue of $233.38 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $231.91 million. MarketAxess had a net margin of 35.53% and a return on equity of 22.28%. The business’s revenue was up 11.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $1.87 EPS. Equities research analysts forecast that MarketAxess will post 8.01 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Primecap Management Co. CA grew its stake in MarketAxess by 42.4% in the 4th 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. AQR Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in MarketAxess by 169.0% in 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 acquiring an additional 1,607,009 shares in the last quarter. North Reef Capital Management LP increased its holdings in MarketAxess by 16.5% in the 1st quarter. North Reef Capital Management LP now owns 1,875,000 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $309,338,000 after acquiring an additional 265,670 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp raised its position in MarketAxess by 4.6% during the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 1,532,696 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $342,312,000 after acquiring an additional 67,290 shares during the period. Finally, Bank of Montreal Can raised its position 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 worth $172,373,000 after acquiring an additional 932,687 shares during the period. 99.01% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

MarketAxess Company 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.