OVERSEA CHINESE BANKING Corp Ltd Invests $671,000 in CME Group Inc. $CME

OVERSEA CHINESE BANKING Corp Ltd acquired a new stake in shares of CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME) in the second quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm acquired 3,040 shares of the financial services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $671,000.

A number of other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of CME. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in CME Group by 1.7% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 35,895,583 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $9,802,366,000 after purchasing an additional 588,509 shares during the period. BlackRock Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of CME Group during the second quarter valued at $6,749,965,000. State Street Corp boosted its stake in shares of CME Group by 0.4% during the fourth quarter. State Street Corp now owns 16,144,525 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $4,408,747,000 after purchasing an additional 56,725 shares during the period. Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of CME Group in the fourth quarter worth about $1,523,241,000. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp grew its holdings in shares of CME Group by 2.8% in the fourth quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 4,924,475 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $1,344,776,000 after purchasing an additional 134,242 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 87.75% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

CME has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft downgraded shares of CME Group from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and reduced their price target for the stock from $286.00 to $270.00 in a research note on Wednesday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their target price on shares of CME Group from $249.00 to $250.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 23rd. Barclays decreased their price target on shares of CME Group from $316.00 to $270.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, July 9th. Raymond James Financial reiterated an “outperform” rating and issued a $320.00 price target on shares of CME Group in a report on Thursday, July 2nd. Finally, Morgan Stanley increased their price objective on CME Group from $324.00 to $330.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 23rd. Nine investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have given a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, CME Group presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $288.56.

CME Group Stock Up 1.5%

Shares of CME Group stock opened at $274.98 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13, a current ratio of 1.02 and a quick ratio of 1.02. CME Group Inc. has a 1 year low of $218.31 and a 1 year high of $329.16. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $251.17 and its two-hundred day moving average is $279.65. The stock has a market cap of $98.88 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.32, a PEG ratio of 3.16 and a beta of 0.23.

CME Group (NASDAQ:CME) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, July 22nd. The financial services provider reported $2.99 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.91 by $0.08. CME Group had a net margin of 63.30% and a return on equity of 15.60%. The business had revenue of $1.71 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.68 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $2.96 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up .8% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts expect that CME Group Inc. will post 12.27 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

CME Group Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, September 25th. Investors of record on Wednesday, September 9th will be issued a dividend of $1.30 per share. This represents a $5.20 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.9%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, September 9th. CME Group’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 44.11%.

Insider Transactions at CME Group

In other CME Group news, Director William R. Shepard acquired 325 shares of CME Group stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, June 25th. The stock was bought at an average price of $230.57 per share, with a total value of $74,935.25. Following the completion of the purchase, the director directly owned 260,442 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $60,050,111.94. This represents a 0.12% increase in their position. The purchase was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. 0.30% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

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.