Brokerages Set MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI) PT at $649.23

Shares of MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI) have been assigned a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” from the fourteen brokerages that are covering the company, MarketBeat.com reports. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and eleven have issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average 1-year price objective among brokers that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $649.23.

Several research firms recently commented on MSCI. Barclays cut their price target on MSCI from $700.00 to $675.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, January 30th. Royal Bank of Canada reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $675.00 price target on shares of MSCI in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of MSCI from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $617.00 to $723.00 in a research report on Wednesday, December 18th. Morgan Stanley lifted their target price on shares of MSCI from $662.00 to $695.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 12th. Finally, Wolfe Research upgraded shares of MSCI from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, December 12th.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other MSCI news, CEO Henry A. Fernandez bought 5,300 shares of MSCI stock in a transaction on Monday, February 24th. The shares were bought at an average cost 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 $729,599,549.01. This represents a 0.42 % increase in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. 3.20% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of MSCI

A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of MSCI. State Street Corp grew its stake in MSCI by 0.4% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 3,192,364 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $1,860,925,000 after purchasing an additional 11,351 shares in the last quarter. Edgewood Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of MSCI by 16.9% in the 3rd quarter. Edgewood Management LLC now owns 2,195,639 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,279,904,000 after buying an additional 318,214 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its stake in shares of MSCI by 1.9% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,897,456 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $1,136,563,000 after buying an additional 35,094 shares during the period. Principal Financial Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of MSCI by 8.0% during the fourth quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 1,613,005 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $967,820,000 after buying an additional 119,471 shares during the period. Finally, Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA raised its holdings in MSCI by 14.3% in the third quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 1,587,723 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $925,531,000 after acquiring an additional 198,666 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 89.97% of the company’s stock.

MSCI Stock Down 0.5 %

MSCI stock opened at $562.98 on Friday. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $581.93 and a 200-day simple moving average of $588.76. The firm has a market capitalization of $43.72 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 40.04, a PEG ratio of 2.61 and a beta of 1.19. MSCI has a 52-week low of $439.95 and a 52-week high of $642.45.

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

MSCI Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 28th. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 14th were paid a $1.80 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, February 14th. This is a boost from MSCI’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.60. This represents a $7.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.28%. 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.