DAVENPORT & Co LLC Has $3.48 Million Holdings in MSCI Inc $MSCI

DAVENPORT & Co LLC cut its holdings in MSCI Inc (NYSE:MSCI) by 7.3% during the second quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 6,038 shares of the technology company’s stock after selling 473 shares during the quarter. DAVENPORT & Co LLC’s holdings in MSCI were worth $3,481,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings in MSCI by 5.9% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 9,376,852 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $5,302,610,000 after buying an additional 518,833 shares during the last quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. increased its holdings in MSCI by 0.9% during the first quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 1,626,923 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $920,026,000 after buying an additional 13,918 shares during the last quarter. American Century Companies Inc. increased its holdings in MSCI by 2.0% during the first quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 1,008,778 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $570,464,000 after buying an additional 19,846 shares during the last quarter. PineStone Asset Management Inc. increased its holdings in MSCI by 11.9% during the second quarter. PineStone Asset Management Inc. now owns 890,123 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $513,370,000 after buying an additional 94,466 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Northern Trust Corp increased its holdings in MSCI by 2.6% during the first quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 804,640 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $455,024,000 after buying an additional 20,150 shares during the last quarter. 89.97% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts recently weighed in on MSCI shares. Raymond James Financial upgraded shares of MSCI from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $650.00 target price on the stock in a report on Friday, July 25th. UBS Group upped their price objective on shares of MSCI from $655.00 to $700.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 8th. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “buy (b-)” rating on shares of MSCI in a report on Wednesday. Seaport Res Ptn upgraded shares of MSCI to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 1st. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company decreased their price objective on shares of MSCI from $578.00 to $533.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, July 23rd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, ten have given a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $649.70.

Insider Activity

In other MSCI news, CEO Henry A. Fernandez bought 84 shares of MSCI stock in a transaction dated Friday, July 25th. The stock was bought at an average price of $548.69 per share, with a total value of $46,089.96. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 1,279,951 shares in the company, valued at $702,296,314.19. The trade was a 0.01% increase in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Insiders have bought a total of 12,400 shares of company stock valued at $6,731,599 over the last three months. Insiders own 3.31% of the company’s stock.

MSCI Stock Performance

Shares of MSCI stock opened at $566.95 on Thursday. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $564.28 and a 200-day moving average of $559.55. The stock has a market cap of $43.86 billion, a PE ratio of 37.55, a PEG ratio of 2.78 and a beta of 1.33. MSCI Inc has a 52-week low of $486.73 and a 52-week high of $642.45.

MSCI (NYSE:MSCI) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, July 22nd. The technology company reported $4.17 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $4.12 by $0.05. The company had revenue of $772.68 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $763.06 million. MSCI had a net margin of 39.46% and a negative return on equity of 143.13%. MSCI’s quarterly revenue was up 9.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $3.64 earnings per share. Equities research analysts predict that MSCI Inc will post 16.86 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

MSCI Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, August 29th. Stockholders of record on Friday, August 15th 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, August 15th. MSCI’s payout ratio is presently 47.68%.

MSCI 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.