Quadrant Capital Group LLC Has $1.20 Million Stock Holdings in MSCI Inc $MSCI

Quadrant Capital Group LLC boosted its stake in shares of MSCI Inc (NYSE:MSCI) by 61.7% during the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 2,079 shares of the technology company’s stock after buying an additional 793 shares during the period. Quadrant Capital Group LLC’s holdings in MSCI were worth $1,199,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of MSCI. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of MSCI by 5.9% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 9,376,852 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $5,302,610,000 after buying an additional 518,833 shares during the period. AQR Capital Management LLC lifted its position in MSCI by 355.7% in the 1st quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 660,690 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $365,976,000 after acquiring an additional 515,713 shares in the last quarter. Magellan Asset Management Ltd acquired a new position in MSCI in the 2nd quarter worth $175,912,000. Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. bought a new position in MSCI during the 1st quarter worth about $119,408,000. Finally, Nuveen LLC acquired a new stake in shares of MSCI in the 1st quarter valued at about $117,879,000. Institutional investors own 89.97% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

MSCI has been the subject of several recent research reports. Weiss Ratings cut MSCI from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a research report on Tuesday. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price target on MSCI from $533.00 to $570.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price target on shares of MSCI from $655.00 to $680.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 29th. UBS Group lifted their price objective on shares of MSCI from $700.00 to $710.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 29th. Finally, Seaport Res Ptn upgraded shares of MSCI to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 1st. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nine have assigned a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, MSCI has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $655.90.

MSCI Stock Down 0.4%

NYSE:MSCI opened at $560.60 on Friday. MSCI Inc has a twelve month low of $486.73 and a twelve month high of $642.45. The firm has a market capitalization of $42.12 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.53, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.76 and a beta of 1.34. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $562.25 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $563.52.

MSCI (NYSE:MSCI) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 28th. The technology company reported $4.47 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $4.37 by $0.10. The company had revenue of $793.43 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $794.87 million. MSCI had a negative return on equity of 110.94% and a net margin of 40.03%.The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $3.86 EPS. As a group, analysts anticipate that MSCI Inc will post 16.86 earnings per share for the current year.

MSCI Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 28th. Stockholders of record on Friday, November 14th were given a $1.80 dividend. This represents a $7.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.3%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, November 14th. MSCI’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 45.63%.

MSCI declared that its board has approved a share repurchase program on Tuesday, October 28th that allows the company to buyback $3.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization allows the technology company to reacquire up to 7.1% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are typically a sign that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling at MSCI

In other news, General Counsel Robert J. Gutowski sold 624 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $558.42, for a total transaction of $348,454.08. Following the transaction, the general counsel directly owned 15,945 shares in the company, valued at $8,904,006.90. The trade was a 3.77% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. 3.31% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

MSCI Company Profile

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.