PYA Waltman Capital LLC Acquires Shares of 11,645 CME Group Inc. $CME

PYA Waltman Capital LLC bought a new stake in CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME) during the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor bought 11,645 shares of the financial services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $2,571,000.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Bridgewater Advisors Inc. purchased a new stake in CME Group during the second quarter valued at about $612,000. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company purchased a new position in shares of CME Group in the second quarter worth about $53,671,000. FLC Capital Advisors purchased a new position in shares of CME Group in the fourth quarter worth about $2,122,000. Haverford Trust Co bought a new stake in shares of CME Group in the second quarter valued at approximately $13,818,000. Finally, HighTower Advisors LLC raised its position in shares of CME Group by 6.9% in the fourth quarter. HighTower Advisors LLC now owns 352,922 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $96,376,000 after purchasing an additional 22,692 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 87.75% of the company’s stock.

CME Group Stock Up 0.3%

Shares of NASDAQ:CME opened at $286.45 on Wednesday. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $255.48 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $278.67. 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 one year low of $218.31 and a one year high of $329.16. The company has a market cap of $103.00 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.30, a PEG ratio of 3.37 and a beta of 0.24.

CME Group (NASDAQ:CME) last released its quarterly 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. The firm had revenue of $1.71 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.68 billion. CME Group had a net margin of 63.30% and a return on equity of 15.60%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up .8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $2.96 EPS. Analysts anticipate that CME Group Inc. will post 12.27 EPS for the current fiscal year.

CME Group Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, September 25th. Investors of record on Wednesday, September 9th will be given a dividend of $1.30 per share. This represents a $5.20 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.8%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, September 9th. CME Group’s payout ratio is presently 44.11%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts recently commented on the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on shares of CME Group from $249.00 to $250.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 23rd. Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on shares of CME Group from $324.00 to $330.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 23rd. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upgraded CME Group from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $305.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Thursday, June 18th. Weiss Ratings downgraded CME Group from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 11th. Finally, Bank of America raised their price target on CME Group from $226.00 to $230.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a report on Thursday, July 23rd. Nine equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have issued a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, CME Group presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $288.56.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other CME Group news, Director William R. Shepard bought 325 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, June 25th. The shares were acquired at an average cost of $230.57 per share, for a total transaction of $74,935.25. Following the purchase, the director directly owned 260,442 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $60,050,111.94. The trade was a 0.12% increase in their ownership of the stock. The acquisition was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. 0.30% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

About CME Group

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.