8,183 MarketAxess Holdings Inc. $MKTX Shares Bought by Walled Lake Planning & Wealth Management LLC

Walled Lake Planning & Wealth Management LLC raised its stake in MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) by 262.6% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 11,299 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 8,183 shares during the quarter. Walled Lake Planning & Wealth Management LLC’s holdings in MarketAxess were worth $1,852,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Versant Capital Management Inc increased its position in MarketAxess by 215.3% during the 2nd quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc now owns 391 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $44,000 after purchasing an additional 267 shares in the last quarter. State of Wyoming acquired a new position in MarketAxess in the 2nd quarter valued at about $49,000. Westpac Banking Corp acquired a new position in MarketAxess in the 1st quarter valued at about $56,000. Root Financial Partners LLC purchased a new position in MarketAxess in the 3rd quarter valued at about $56,000. Finally, IFP Advisors Inc lifted its holdings in MarketAxess by 97.0% in the 3rd quarter. IFP Advisors Inc now owns 394 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $65,000 after purchasing an additional 194 shares in the last quarter. 99.01% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

MarketAxess Price Performance

MKTX opened at $165.30 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.09, a quick ratio of 1.85 and a current ratio of 1.85. The company has a 50-day moving average of $163.78 and a 200-day moving average of $155.50. MarketAxess Holdings Inc. has a 1-year low of $108.75 and a 1-year high of $195.96. The company has a market capitalization of $5.82 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.23, a PEG ratio of 2.21 and a beta of 0.83.

MarketAxess (NASDAQ:MKTX) last posted its earnings results on Friday, October 23rd. The financial services provider reported $1.86 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.95 by ($0.09). The company had revenue of $210.41 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $218.98 million. MarketAxess had a net margin of 33.51% and a return on equity of 23.15%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up .8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company posted $1.84 earnings per share. Equities analysts expect that MarketAxess Holdings Inc. will post 8.02 EPS for the current fiscal year.

MarketAxess Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, November 25th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, November 11th will be issued a $0.78 dividend. This represents a $3.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.9%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, November 10th. MarketAxess’s dividend payout ratio is presently 38.19%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages have recently commented on MKTX. Wall Street Zen downgraded shares of MarketAxess from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Saturday, August 1st. Barclays upped their price objective on shares of MarketAxess from $132.00 to $167.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Monday, August 10th. Weiss Ratings upgraded shares of MarketAxess from a “hold (c-)” rating to a “hold (c)” rating in a research report on Thursday. UBS Group lowered MarketAxess from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and reduced their price target for the stock from $200.00 to $167.00 in a research note on Friday, July 31st. Finally, William Blair downgraded MarketAxess from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 30th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating and twelve have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, MarketAxess currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $159.44.

Insider Activity

In other news, Director William Cruger, Jr. sold 6,164 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, September 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $163.20, for a total value of $1,005,964.80. Following the completion of the sale, the director owned 4,033 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $658,185.60. This trade represents a 60.45% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 6,464 shares of company stock valued at $1,055,022. Insiders own 0.72% of the company’s stock.

About MarketAxess

MarketAxess Holdings Inc operates an electronic trading platform for fixed-income securities and related market data services. The company connects institutional investors, broker-dealers and other market participants, enabling them to trade corporate bonds, government bonds, emerging-market debt and other credit products through digital workflows.

Its offerings include electronic request-for-quote trading, all-to-all trading through its Open Trading marketplace, portfolio trading, and tools designed to support pricing, liquidity discovery and trade execution.