Nykredit A S Invests $34.09 Million in CME Group Inc. $CME

Nykredit A S acquired a new position in shares of CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME) in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm acquired 154,380 shares of the financial services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $34,092,000.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Bridgewater Advisors Inc. bought a new stake in CME Group in the second quarter worth $612,000. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company acquired a new position in CME Group during the second quarter worth $53,671,000. FLC Capital Advisors bought a new position in CME Group during the fourth quarter valued at about $2,122,000. Haverford Trust Co bought a new position in CME Group during the second quarter valued at about $13,818,000. Finally, Bowie Capital Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of CME Group in the second quarter worth about $22,991,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 87.75% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

CME has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. Wall Street Zen upgraded CME Group from a “strong sell” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note on Saturday, August 29th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised CME Group from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $305.00 price objective on the stock in a research note on Thursday, June 18th. TD Cowen restated a “buy” rating and issued a $292.00 target price on shares of CME Group in a report on Thursday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their target price on CME Group from $249.00 to $250.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 23rd. Finally, Erste Group Bank downgraded CME Group from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, June 5th. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have given a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $289.75.

CME Group Stock Up 1.5%

CME Group stock opened at $282.05 on Friday. 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 fifty-two week low of $218.31 and a fifty-two week high of $329.16. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $257.55 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $278.36. The firm has a market cap of $101.42 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.92, a P/E/G ratio of 3.28 and a beta of 0.24.

CME Group (NASDAQ:CME) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 22nd. The financial services provider reported $2.99 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.91 by $0.08. The company had revenue of $1.71 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.68 billion. CME Group had a return on equity of 15.60% and a net margin of 63.30%.The firm’s revenue was up .8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business posted $2.96 earnings per share. As a group, analysts forecast that CME Group Inc. will post 12.27 earnings per share for the current 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 paid a dividend of $1.30 per share. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, September 9th. This represents a $5.20 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.8%. CME Group’s dividend payout ratio is presently 44.11%.

Insider Transactions at CME Group

In other CME Group news, Director William Shepard purchased 325 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, June 25th. The shares were bought at an average cost of $230.57 per share, with a total value of $74,935.25. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 260,442 shares in the company, valued at approximately $60,050,111.94. This represents a 0.12% increase in their position. The purchase was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. 0.30% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

CME Group Profile

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.