13,600 Shares in MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) Acquired by Guardian Partners Inc.

Guardian Partners Inc. bought a new position in MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm bought 13,600 shares of the financial services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $2,987,000.

A number of other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Van ECK Associates Corp boosted its stake in MarketAxess by 13.4% in the 4th quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 2,000,736 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $452,246,000 after purchasing an additional 236,497 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC boosted its stake in MarketAxess by 17.5% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 1,959,043 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $501,907,000 after purchasing an additional 291,134 shares in the last quarter. Primecap Management Co. CA lifted its stake in MarketAxess by 2.3% during the 4th quarter. Primecap Management Co. CA now owns 1,369,102 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $309,472,000 after acquiring an additional 30,180 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in MarketAxess by 14.9% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,076,877 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $275,122,000 after acquiring an additional 139,949 shares during the period. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp lifted its stake in MarketAxess by 2.6% during the 4th quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 440,934 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $99,669,000 after acquiring an additional 11,291 shares during the period. 99.01% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts have commented on the stock. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods decreased their price objective on shares of MarketAxess from $251.00 to $225.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, February 7th. Barclays decreased their price objective on shares of MarketAxess from $256.00 to $225.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, February 7th. Piper Sandler decreased their price objective on shares of MarketAxess from $265.00 to $240.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, January 7th. The Goldman Sachs Group decreased their price objective on shares of MarketAxess from $235.00 to $210.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, February 10th. Finally, UBS Group decreased their price objective on shares of MarketAxess from $330.00 to $305.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, February 7th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $254.78.

MarketAxess Price Performance

NASDAQ:MKTX opened at $216.87 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $8.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.83, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.89 and a beta of 1.05. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $207.93 and a 200-day moving average price of $240.44. MarketAxess Holdings Inc. has a 1-year low of $186.84 and a 1-year high of $296.68.

MarketAxess (NASDAQ:MKTX) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 6th. The financial services provider reported $1.73 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.70 by $0.03. MarketAxess had a net margin of 33.56% and a return on equity of 20.23%. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that MarketAxess Holdings Inc. will post 7.79 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

MarketAxess Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, March 5th. Investors of record on Wednesday, February 19th were issued a $0.76 dividend. This represents a $3.04 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.40%. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, February 19th. This is a positive change from MarketAxess’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.74. MarketAxess’s payout ratio is presently 41.82%.

About MarketAxess

MarketAxess Holdings Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates an electronic trading platform for institutional investor and broker-dealer companies worldwide. The company offers trading technology that provides liquidity access in U.S. high-grade bonds, U.S. high-yield bonds, emerging market debt, eurobonds, municipal bonds, U.S.