CME Group (NASDAQ:CME) Upgraded at Morgan Stanley

CME Group (NASDAQ:CME) was upgraded by research analysts at Morgan Stanley from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating in a report released on Tuesday, MarketBeat.com reports. The brokerage presently has a $301.00 target price on the financial services provider’s stock. Morgan Stanley’s price objective would suggest a potential upside of 18.44% from the company’s previous close.

CME has been the subject of a number of other reports. Bank of America lifted their price objective on CME Group from $200.00 to $219.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 2nd. Piper Sandler lifted their price target on shares of CME Group from $250.00 to $258.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 7th. Barclays upped their price objective on shares of CME Group from $263.00 to $279.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Monday. Erste Group Bank upgraded shares of CME Group to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Finally, Oppenheimer increased their price target on CME Group from $258.00 to $269.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 13th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating, four have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $246.80.

CME Group Stock Performance

NASDAQ CME opened at $254.13 on Tuesday. CME Group has a twelve month low of $190.70 and a twelve month high of $273.42. The company has a quick ratio of 1.02, a current ratio of 1.01 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10. The stock has a market cap of $91.58 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.28, a PEG ratio of 6.76 and a beta of 0.43. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $254.49 and its 200 day simple moving average is $238.51.

CME Group (NASDAQ:CME) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 12th. The financial services provider reported $2.52 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.46 by $0.06. CME Group had a return on equity of 13.62% and a net margin of 57.52%. As a group, research analysts forecast that CME Group will post 10.49 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, Director Howard J. Siegel sold 10,000 shares of CME Group stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $260.00, for a total transaction of $2,600,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 21,873 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,686,980. The trade was a 31.37 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, COO Suzanne Sprague sold 1,500 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, March 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $256.83, for a total value of $385,245.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer now directly owns 8,036 shares in the company, valued at $2,063,885.88. The trade was a 15.73 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 27,076 shares of company stock valued at $6,871,496. 0.30% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of CME Group

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in CME Group by 1.0% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 34,243,090 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $7,952,273,000 after acquiring an additional 326,623 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in CME Group by 1.3% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 8,389,442 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $1,946,717,000 after purchasing an additional 104,697 shares during the period. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD boosted its position in shares of CME Group by 89.9% during the fourth quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 8,280,785 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $1,923,047,000 after purchasing an additional 3,921,278 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of CME Group in the 4th quarter valued at $1,107,389,000. Finally, FIL Ltd increased its position in shares of CME Group by 1.5% in the 4th quarter. FIL Ltd now owns 4,081,391 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $947,821,000 after buying an additional 61,908 shares in the last quarter. 87.75% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

CME Group Company Profile

CME Group Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates contract markets for the trading of futures and options on futures contracts worldwide. It offers futures and options products based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, agricultural commodities, energy, and metals, as well as fixed income and foreign currency trading services.