MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (MKTX) to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $0.76 on March 5th

MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, January 23rd,Wall Street Journal reports. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, February 19th will be given a dividend of 0.76 per share by the financial services provider on Wednesday, March 5th. This represents a $3.04 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.57%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, February 19th. This is a positive change from MarketAxess’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.74.

MarketAxess has raised its dividend payment by an average of 3.9% per year over the last three years. MarketAxess has a dividend payout ratio of 35.0% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect MarketAxess to earn $9.10 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $3.04 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 33.4%.

MarketAxess Trading Up 1.1 %

Shares of MKTX opened at $193.49 on Monday. MarketAxess has a 12 month low of $188.88 and a 12 month high of $296.68. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $220.83 and a 200-day moving average price of $246.18. The firm has a market cap of $7.29 billion, a PE ratio of 26.61, a P/E/G ratio of 4.08 and a beta of 1.02.

MarketAxess (NASDAQ:MKTX) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 6th. The financial services provider reported $1.73 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.70 by $0.03. MarketAxess had a return on equity of 20.23% and a net margin of 33.56%. As a group, research analysts forecast that MarketAxess will post 8.05 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several analysts have recently commented on MKTX shares. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods decreased their price objective on MarketAxess from $251.00 to $225.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a report on Friday, February 7th. Barclays cut their target price on MarketAxess from $256.00 to $225.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, February 7th. UBS Group cut their target price on MarketAxess from $330.00 to $305.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, February 7th. Piper Sandler cut their target price on MarketAxess from $265.00 to $240.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, January 7th. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upped their target price on MarketAxess from $258.00 to $264.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, November 11th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $254.78.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, General Counsel Scott Pintoff sold 300 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $240.57, for a total transaction of $72,171.00. Following the sale, the general counsel now directly owns 8,302 shares in the company, valued at $1,997,212.14. This trade represents a 3.49 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. 2.66% of the stock is owned by insiders.

MarketAxess Company Profile

MarketAxess Holdings Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates an electronic trading platform for institutional investor and broker-dealer companies worldwide. The company offers trading technology that provides liquidity access in U.S. high-grade bonds, U.S. high-yield bonds, emerging market debt, eurobonds, municipal bonds, U.S.