Fielder Capital Group LLC Makes New $456,000 Investment in MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI)

Fielder Capital Group LLC purchased a new position in shares of MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI) during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund purchased 760 shares of the technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $456,000.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the business. QRG Capital Management Inc. lifted its stake in shares of MSCI by 25.9% during the fourth quarter. QRG Capital Management Inc. now owns 3,069 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $1,842,000 after buying an additional 632 shares during the period. Versor Investments LP purchased a new stake in MSCI during the 4th quarter valued at about $1,547,000. Proficio Capital Partners LLC acquired a new position in shares of MSCI in the fourth quarter valued at about $126,082,000. Walter Public Investments Inc. raised its stake in shares of MSCI by 18.5% in the fourth quarter. Walter Public Investments Inc. now owns 23,265 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $13,959,000 after purchasing an additional 3,634 shares during the last quarter. Finally, SRN Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in shares of MSCI by 4.0% during the fourth quarter. SRN Advisors LLC now owns 2,505 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $1,503,000 after purchasing an additional 97 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 89.97% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at MSCI

In related news, CEO Henry A. Fernandez purchased 5,300 shares of MSCI stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 24th. The shares were acquired at an average price of $574.51 per share, for a total transaction of $3,044,903.00. Following the acquisition, the chief executive officer now directly owns 1,269,951 shares in the company, valued at approximately $729,599,549.01. The trade was a 0.42 % increase in their ownership of the stock. The purchase was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. 3.20% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages recently weighed in on MSCI. Wolfe Research upgraded shares of MSCI from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, December 12th. Barclays cut their price objective on shares of MSCI from $700.00 to $675.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, January 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their target price on shares of MSCI from $700.00 to $680.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $675.00 price target on shares of MSCI in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. Finally, Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on MSCI from $662.00 to $695.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, December 12th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eleven have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $649.23.

MSCI Stock Up 0.3 %

MSCI opened at $581.09 on Friday. MSCI Inc. has a 52-week low of $439.95 and a 52-week high of $642.45. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $594.03 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $588.93. The company has a market cap of $45.12 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 41.33, a PEG ratio of 2.61 and a beta of 1.11.

MSCI (NYSE:MSCI) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, January 29th. The technology company reported $4.18 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.96 by $0.22. MSCI had a negative return on equity of 156.08% and a net margin of 38.83%. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $3.68 EPS. On average, research analysts forecast that MSCI Inc. will post 16.86 EPS for the current year.

MSCI Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 28th. Investors of record on Friday, February 14th will be given a dividend of $1.80 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, February 14th. This is a positive change from MSCI’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.60. This represents a $7.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.24%. MSCI’s payout ratio is presently 51.21%.

About MSCI

MSCI Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides critical decision support tools and solutions for the investment community to manage investment processes worldwide. The Index segment provides indexes for use in various areas of the investment process, including indexed financial product, such as ETFs, mutual funds, annuities, futures, options, structured products, and over-the-counter derivatives; performance benchmarking; portfolio construction and rebalancing; and asset allocation, as well as licenses GICS and GICS Direct.